Potato Box experiment! early results info & questions

[nao57]

So I thought I would report on doing potato boxes. I felt like if I didn't it could mislead people to try it when its not effective. So it doesn't work very well. For potatoes themselves the plants work and you see live plants but the roots heat up in the boxes and therefore can't PRODUCE potatoes. So they fail. Sometimes they can have too much moisture also depending, but its not cool moisture that makes potatoes.

I did a few boxes that sort of worked with tomatoes though. This was an unexpected extra result. So the reason the tomatoes worked is tomatoes are a bit more heat tolerant. So that worked. But potatoes didn't. Also one of the reasons the tomato plants in raised boxes worked was because the boxes were all right next to each other so much stacked together that there wasn't space between the boxes. And this made it so with enough of them grouped together it was like they weren't raised anymore. And this let them shield against the heat warming up the box more.

That being said, the tomatoes were a bit smaller than they would have been if they'd been raised outside a raised bed in normal dirt.

So after this year, I won't do anything with raised beds or or raised earth boxes anymore. I think people want the idea to work and do youtube videos on it and other places before they actually realize its not going to work, OR will be less effective than if the plants were in the ground. And they are trying to shortcut real work with not wanting to have to bend over.

Note; another consideration is that I am in a southwest climate. This exaggerates the costs and hardships of gardening.

 

[NatJ]

So I thought I would report on doing potato boxes. I felt like if I didn't it could mislead people to try it when its not effective. So it doesn't work very well. For potatoes themselves the plants work and you see live plants but the roots heat up in the boxes and therefore can't PRODUCE potatoes. So they fail. Sometimes they can have too much moisture also depending, but its not cool moisture that makes potatoes.

I did a few boxes that sort of worked with tomatoes though. This was an unexpected extra result. So the reason the tomatoes worked is tomatoes are a bit more heat tolerant. So that worked. But potatoes didn't. Also one of the reasons the tomato plants in raised boxes worked was because the boxes were all right next to each other so much stacked together that there wasn't space between the boxes. And this made it so with enough of them grouped together it was like they weren't raised anymore. And this let them shield against the heat warming up the box more.

That being said, the tomatoes were a bit smaller than they would have been if they'd been raised outside a raised bed in normal dirt.

So after this year, I won't do anything with raised beds or or raised earth boxes anymore. I think people want the idea to work and do youtube videos on it and other places before they actually realize its not going to work, OR will be less effective than if the plants were in the ground. And they are trying to shortcut real work with not wanting to have to bend over.

Note; another consideration is that I am in a southwest climate. This exaggerates the costs and hardships of gardening.

Thank you for updating in such detail!

Note; another consideration is that I am in a southwest climate.

This is a very good point. Climate makes a big difference for many gardening things. I wonder if there are some climates where this technique would work well?

 

[Sally PB]

A friend north of me had great results with potatoes in grow bags. (Not the same friend who was growing them in buckets.) He said he isn't going to plant potatoes in the ground anymore, because he had much better yield with the bags. He is north of me, zone 5 a/b, not sure which.

 

[Sally PB]

Potatoes like loose soil. People have even grown them by just putting a potato under some loosely piled straw. At the end of the growing season, they pull the straw away and harvest the potatoes.

If you think of how they grow from their point of view, potatoes are pushing a lot of soil out of the way when they form the tubers. If the soil is hard and compacted, the tubers can't grow.

 

[akroberts1085]

I live in zone 9a and potatoes don't do good in the ground or the grow bags. I'm thinking about building a box and see if that works.

 

[nao57]

Thank you for updating in such detail!


This is a very good point. Climate makes a big difference for many gardening things. I wonder if there are some climates where this technique would work well?

That's a very interesting question. If you were in an area that is naturally really green and has a lot of vegetation then it would have more 'buffer' to work.

I've also found that taking into account how to keep the roots cool is a major variable effecting how things go. Like the top of the plant can get hot no problem. But not the roots.

Thank you for commenting!