As I mentioned previously, we bought a lot of seed potatoes this year. And our plan was to build potato stacks to grow them in, instead of the tires we grew the taters in last year. In case you’re new to our madness, we’re trying to maximize potato production on our small urban lot. Potatoes are one of the best ways to grow calories on your land if you have a small space. Also, potatoes are awesome, delicious, versatile, and store for longer than, say, juicy heirloom tomatoes.
Here it is, first week of May and my potatoes are still chitting in the kitchen windowsill, far away from dirt and the potato stacks were still just piles of lumber, scribbled diagrams on scrap paper, and a handful of dreams.
This is a great example of how much better we really are as a pair than I could ever be individually. My wonderful, newly self-taught carpenter spouse spent her weekend in the garage, bringing together the potato stacks. And it was like a miracle to see them go from a stack of boards directly into the form we’d dreamed up months ago, before the potatoes sprouted and before she knew how to use a table saw.
Aren’t they lovely? The corner posts are fir 2×2’s, the slats are cedar fence boards cut to length. The bottom level is stationary, and all the upper boxes slide on as the potato grows, and off as it’s time to harvest. Then, before the sun set on us, we planted one full of organic seed potatoes. Working full time in an office while you’re trying to grow your sub-compact farm means you’re always racing the sunset to get the potatoes planted. Here’s an All Blue potato getting ready to be buried.
And here’s the stack with one level, planted with yukon golds, cal reds and all blues. They are all mid-season potatoes. My dream is that the day we harvest this stack will be the day we eat multicolored potato salad.
Hopefully within the next few days we can get the rest of the potatoes into the ground, and eventually we can host a potato harvest festival with garlic mashed potatoes, chipotle mashed potatoes, vegan sheppards pie, rosemary roasted breakfast potatoes, potato tacos, latkes, pierogies, baked french fries, potato salad. My fingers are crossed.
krista and jess 