This is what it looked like when I first planted it...
This is at peak growing...
And this is just before I broke that sucka open. It really shrunk down.
It didn't exactly all fall out, like the guy said it would, but close enough. I could brush the soil away with my hands where the potatoes were growing.
I don't know if you can tell or not, but I raked about 2/3 of the soil back into the spot to compost over the winter. That way I'll have my first layer for next spring already there.
Here's my harvest. About 7#. Add to that about 5# we harvested earlier, it comes to about 12# or so. So, I doubled my input, 'cause I planted 6# originally. So It comes to about 25 cents a pound for fresh potatoes. That's not too terrible. I did expect a better harvest, but this is certainly better than the none I was able to grow in the ground before. Add to that no digging to harvest and I think we have a winner.
And here's the smallest!
So, to recap:
Pros
It didn't take up much space
It looked pretty good as an architectural planting
It was pretty maintenance free, except for watering and a couple of "wheat" weeds from the straw
The harvesting was easy
I actually got a harvest
Cons
Not as good of harvest as I would have liked
I plan to do this again next year, but I think I'll skip the Kennebecs. We weren't real thrilled with them and prefer the Reds and Yukons.
Linking to:
Wow! Great job! Mmm, potato soup...
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Lenore
I really want to do this! looks awesome!
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