Potato Tower AKA Garden Lasagna:

Potato towers give new meaning to the term garden lasagna. What you need:

• Square of steel fencing 3-4 ft wide and tall
• Straw
• Garden soil
• Seed potatoes 1-2 lbs per tower

Make sure to plant your potato tower in a sunny location with good soil drainage.   Bend some steel fencing into a tube and fasten. When you cut the fencing with wire cutters, fold the wire back on itself to catch the other side and fasten.   The top and bottom will be open. Securely place one open end on the ground with the other open end facing the sky.   Make a nest of straw in the bottom, and fill it with a good soil mixture. Nestle 8 seed potatoes, with eyes pointing to the outside, all the way around the circle.   Continue building your garden lasagna by layering up: hay, soil, seed potatoes. Repeat until you run out of seed potatoes. Put a final topping of soil and hay on top, and you’re done. Water generously.

How Big Is Your Harvest:

To minimize time, we always plant the entire seed potato. Spring is busy for us, and this is a time saver. We yield around 10 lbs of potatoes per 1 lb of seed. However, we do have some friends that cut their potatoes into 2 inch chunks with an eye on each chunk. These homesteaders have a larger yield for obvious reasons. There is a trick to this. After cutting they let the potatoes dry for a couple of days before planting, so they don’t rot. We plan on experimenting with this method next year.

Harvesting

When your potato plants have started to wilt up, usually late summer in our zone, you should begin harvesting. You can simply push the tower over and pull the potatoes out. It’s like mining for gold. Remember these are yummy carbs. Don’t forget to reuse your leftover soil in the compost pile or another area of the garden in a rotation.

Cleaning the Potatoes

Clean the potatoes with water. Depending on your soil mixture, you can let them soak for a few minutes to soften dirt. I also make a gentle pass with a scrub brush to ensure the soil is gone.

Simple Roasted Potato Recipe

Clean and cut potatoes into 1–2-inch chunks. Drizzle 3 Tbsp. of olive oil on a cookie sheet and add potatoes in a single layer. Drizzle 3 more Tbsp. of olive oil on top to coat the potatoes. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese, season salt, pepper and rosemary to taste. We go generous on this step. Bake at 425 for 30 minutes. Garnish with a sprig of rosemary. What a delicious addition to your dinner.  

Pin for later  –  How to Grow Potatoes in a Potato Tower

Additional Gardening Resources

I hope you enjoy this step by step guide to growing potatoes from seed in a potato tower. It is easy to plant and takes up a small amount of space. Growing your own food is such a rewarding activity for your family to enjoy. We also have another free guide you may be interested in Click Here for a List of 20 Quick Growing Veggies. Blessings to you this week! Lana XO

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