Call for help! Garden novice

[Sniper-T]

I don't remember if I posted this here or not, But I am planning on doing a couple of these this year for my potatoes.

I don't remember where I got the article from, but the authors name is attached for credit, and release.

Sniped:
The Tater Tire-Tower
Duncan Kunz
January 1998
Legal Stuff
This article is copyrighted, which means it belongs to me. You may make all the copies you
want, paper and/or electronic, and hand them out to anyone you want to, as long as you follow
these three rules:
�� You can’t charge for the copies. You got them for free; you pass them on for free.
�� You can’t change any of the text or drawings.
�� You have to pass on the entire copy, including this copyright data, and the headers and
footers of the document.
Okay, enough of the lawyer talk. Plant those taters!
The Tater Tire-Tower ©Duncan Kunz 1998 page 1 of 1
©Duncan Kunz 1998 See Restriction on Title Page
1. Introduction
Potatoes are great food. The Irish lived on them for years; and if there’s one vegetable that
provides more nourishment for the effort to raise them, I can’t think of it. You can store potatoes
for quite a while in a root cellar, and they are pretty low-maintenance plants to grow.
Two disadvantages of these tubers is that they are often damaged when harvesting, since growers
typically use a potato-fork (which is a sort of blunt-edged pitchfork) to harvest them, and that
often splits the potatoes; and, they take up a lot of room in the garden.
The tater tire-tower is a way to solve both problems, as well as to cut down on weeding.
2. How to Do It
You’ll need three or four old tires of the same size – I’ve used ones from light trucks or full-size
cars. If the tires are NOT steel-belted radials, you can cut the sidewalls off with an electric
keyhole saw to get a bit more production, but it’s not absolutely necessary. If you live in a hot
area, you should paint the tires a light color to reflect the sunlight and keep the soil a bit cooler.
Even if cooling the soil were not a problem, I’d paint the tires just to make the tower look better.
Clear a flat area about four feet in diameter, removing all weeds. Lay a tire flat, and fill it up
with good soil, including the amendments you’d usually use for roots and tuber crops. Plant the
potato-eyes or already-sprouted plants at the appropriate depth. When the plants are a couple of
inches high, stack a second tire on top of the first one, and gently fill it with dirt, too. Of course,
you’ll cover up the newly-sprouted plants, but that shouldn’t be a problem. It might be best to
have someone hold the sprouts straight up, so they won’t have to put forth as much effort to
grow up through the new soil.
Now, plant more potato-eyes or already-sprouted plants in the new soil. The new plants and the
old ones should clear the surface at about the same time. Of course, by now there’ll be twice as
many plants competing for light, so make sure they get enough sun. When the plants are a
couple of inches above the new layer, repeat the process with the third and (if you choose) the
fourth tire.
When harvest time comes, dismantle the tower (you might need a helper for this, since the dirtfilled
tires will be pretty heavy) one tire at a time, and the potatoes will just roll out. Gently
brush the dirt off the taters and store them on layers of straw in a cool, dark place. They’ll keep
for quite a while, as long as they’re not bruised or cut.
Remember that the soil should be added gently to the second, third, and fourth layers. This helps
keep the newly-buried shoots from getting crushed, and also allows good irrigation (remember,
those first-generation taters are in pretty deep, and you need to make sure the water percolates
down to their level). You might also want to bore a couple of holes in the side of the tater-tower
near ground level, so the water doesn’t collect in the bottom and rot the taters.
The first time I tried this, I got almost a bushel of taters from four truck tires. Neighbors would
run in fear whenever I appeared at their door with my crop. It’s almost like zucchini (except that
you can do a lot more with taters than you can with zucchini)!
I have only grown Idaho potatoes this way, but I see no reason why red potatoes (or even sweet
potatoes and yams) wouldn’t work.
Good luck!

[bacpacker]

Raven, Which Sepp Holzer book do you have? I just found out he has two out. First one was The Rebel Farmer, second one is about Permaculture. I can't remember the whole title, but that's the one I have.

[Patmark]

Hi Izzy, Grats on deciding to use the land to help feed your family and teach yourself to grow your own food. I only wish that I was as smart as you appear to be and asked for help so I didn't have to learn everything the hard way. The information that you have gotten already in this thread is invaluable.

Last year I decided to do the very same thing and set out to get it done. I decided to document every step in pictures so that I would be able to show other preppers what I did in the hopes that it would help others to be as successful at it as I have been. Now don't get me wrong I made plenty of mistakes along the way and you will too, that's par for the course and just a part of the process.

There are a couple of things that will make your life a lot easier as you go about creating your garden.

1). Start a compost pit immediately, do not wait until you need it like I did. Here are some picts of the process that I learned from the university of Colorado.

Compost pit | Facebook

2). Sit down and take the time to draw a picture of how your garden will look when it's complete.

Draw out the size that its going to be in detail.
Add in all the measurements,
draw in all of the sections, the rows, write in which plants will be placed where in the garden, how many of them that you want to have,
the space each one requires,
the time of year that each plant needs to be planted for your Zone,( I believe that you are in zone 6 there),
weather to start the plants from seeds or from , weather they should be started indoors or right in the garden.
I also googled each plant that I decided to grow to find out the soil, water, and light requirements for each type of plant and wrote that in as well.

Izzy I know this sounds like alot to do but after going in the yard and measureing things out a little this whole proccess really doesn't take as long as you might think and it helps you to visualize what it is that you are trying to create. Remember that growing your own food is alot of work and involves a very strong commitment. Plants don't care if you are sick or if you have to work, when they need something it has to be done, . Plants are greedy little buggers.

The next thing that I had to consider in the planning stage was weather or not to grow organically. I have found that organic farming is a whole different ball game from modern farming and requires a different set of skills. I won't go into them as this post is getting way too long, but when you decide let me know and I will be glad to help you learn what you need to know.

All that said I really hope that these links will work on this site.

My Garden | Facebook


Here is what I have done step by step in pictures, I hope this helps you let me know if there is anything else that I can do to help. Oh and one more thing my friend, keep in mind that these are pictures of how I did it. There are many ways to grow your own food so you most certainly shouldn't do everything exactly as I did as your circumstances may be different. Take what you need and leave the rest and just ask if I can answer any questions for you. Good luck man.

PM

[izzyscout21]

Patmark:

Thanks for the intel. It is very much appreciated. I'm no stranger to growing, but I am a complete noob in regards to growing on this scale. I've already started composting, but I doubt it will yield the amount of compost I will need. DIgging the pics, man.

As for the organic or not, I'm going to roll with the chemicals. I need the food to live, not be a failed experiment.

One thing I realized the other day...... I may have to fence it in. The garden will butt up next to a cornfield. There are a lot of critters that frequent the field. I' sure the'd love to help me eat my produce.

[Taz Baby]

You can use a solar eletric fence. Might be cheaper. We have battery powered motion alarms from HF. Also solar motion lights for night time.

[Sniper-T]

You may also want to put a camera out for a while too. see what critters are even going to be a bother. No sense putting up a 6 foot chainlink when a single or double strand barb might do. Or putting up an electric, and having bunnies go under and deer and moosephants jumping over top.


Also remember to bury the lower edge to stop anything from crawling/digging under

[bacpacker]

Izzy I saw on the TV last night talking about the zones for this area. You are definately in zone 6. The solar fencing it a good idea, I'm going to put one up around the chickens fence. It will also put out enough juice that it'll cover the garden, if I need to.
I picked it up at Tractor Supply. It was the 2nd largest solar charger they had, I think it was about $100.

[ladyhk13]

I don't know if it's posted anywhere but if you have a deer problem, they will jump or go over a fence but the trick with them is if you put up your perimeter at 4' and then do another one shorter just a couple of feet inside of that one they won't come in. They have a depth problem when it comes to those types of fences and get tied up in them. I can't remember where I saw it but I think it was on some hunting show or something. It doesn't need to be chain link just that thin white wire that is used for electrical fencing...I don't know what it's called but when we moved here the people that set up our apple grove had it around the whole thing for the electric fence. It was white plastic on the outside and wire on the inside. I'm sure you could find something else as well but I was just thinking that it was nice ans stout and probably not expensive but if you have other stuff on hand I'm sure you can use it too.

[Patmark]

Izzy, I don't know if this will work for deer. I don't have a problem with them down here but this has worked like a charm for keeping all the other critters out of my garden. Possum, Armadillos, Dogs, Cats, ect. I call this stuff Critter Ridder.

Go to the grocery store and buy one pound of the hottest peppers that they have, (I used Habeneros), and 2 gallons of white distilled vinegar. Put the vinegar on to boil and while it is heating up cut the peppers up. Once the vinegar gets almost to a boil put all the peppers in, seeds, stems and all, reduce the heat, and let it cook for an hour or so.

Set it aside and let it cool, I left it overnight to make sure it was completely cooled off. Strain out the solids and set them aside. Pour the vinegar pepper mixture into a couple of gallon storage containers full strength.

To use this in the garden itself:
Mix it in your sprayer, 1/2 gallon of Critter Ridder to 1 gallon of water. Spray the entire garden, all the soil, the stems, and the base of all of the plants.

To keep the critters from coming in your garden, pour this mixture full strength around the entire outside of the garden, then spread the solids around the outside as well. You will of course need to retreat the area periodically, especially after a good rain but I will tell you this, once I poured Critter Ridder around the circumference of my garden not even my own dog would go near it. He walked up to it, took one whiff, and headed in the other direction with his tail tucked between his legs. I hope this helps. It really worked great for me.

PM

[Sniper-T]

Instead of using tires for the taters, I went with boxes, but will essentially be following the same principle as above

BUilt in detachable segments, about 2 feet high (so far), if they do well, I'll add more:







And since I had a few potatoes left, I threw together one of these: