this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2024
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Gardening

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Just admiring the sprinklers in the morning light

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (10 children)

Great setup! Can you please tell me more about those pots/boxes where the potatoes are growing in? How are they built?

[–] ThrowawaySobriquet 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Yup! As was said, they're just cattle fence made into round cages. The bottoms I lined with some landscaping fabric for a growing medium (75/25 compost/soil) and planted the potatoes about half way down. From there I just mound up in straw.

Edit: I forgot a few details. They're held up on either side by t-posts. Nothing fancy, just driven in and wired to each post three times (top, center, bottom) for stability and support. I put sprinklers on the top because that's what I had, though I do want to do something different in the future. I don't like top watering, but I haven't quite figured out how I wanna do it otherwise. I'm thinking a strand or two of drip that gets mounded up with the potato as it grows, but that's experimenting for another time

There's some folks that will actually do a core of medium up the center for new potato roots to take hold in. I'm trying something that's a little more fertilizer-intense, but easier to scale up. Little blood meal every couple weeks while they're growing up then some 10-10-10 twice (once at the beginning and once again here in a bit).

If I can make this work in my home garden, I'm hoping to tweak it a bit for larger scale. We'll see

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This looks like something I could do as a beginner. Thanks for answering.

[–] ThrowawaySobriquet 2 points 5 months ago

No worries! I added some notes on support and irrigation I forgot to mention

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