Not everyone has a Back 40. Many urban gardeners are working with aggressive space constraints (“Patio 4?” anyone?) but still want the joy of planting, harvesting and cooking homegrown veg. For these gardeners, container growing is sometimes the best or only option. Nearly every crop that can be grown in ground can also be grown…
Container Gardening
Heavy Duty Potato Cage Results
I’m writing this post kinda under duress. If I don’t write it, several readers are going to show up at my house with pitchforks, demanding answers. People want a follow-up on the Heavy Duty Potato Cages I built last spring, and they want it now, so they can plan for their own potato growing. Totally…
How To Make A Heavy Duty Potato Cage
Every year about this time gardeners start inflicting all manner of experiments upon the humble spud. We drop them into burlap sacks, grow pots, wood towers, mesh towers, tire towers, garbage cans, straw bales and more. We attempt the Square Foot method, the Ruth Stout method, the Hilled Row Method, the Plastic Mulch Method. The…
Giveaway: Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard plus The Three Rules Small Space Gardeners Must Follow
In the Seattle urban farming scene, there are a couple of guys – Colin and Brad – who seem to be everywhere. They run the aptly named Seattle Urban Farm Company, and under that moniker set-up and maintain edible gardens in backyards and on restaurant rooftops around the city and teach countless workshops for beginning…
Total Potato Fail
I am having the darndest time with the easy plants this year. The beans, the peas, the broccoli, the berries, the onions, the beets, the lettuce, the squash, the artichokes…all thriving, but the crops you just can’t mess up? Well, they’re messed up. The garlic went tits up due to white rot and my potatoes are…
Bags Aren’t Just For Chips: The Potato Sack Experiment
Every year I run out of room. So this year I am moving my biggest space-hogs out of the raised beds and into containers I can stash around paths and patios. I’m starting with potatoes, which I am attempting to grow in huge bags. I received my seed potatoes from Territorial several weeks ago and have been…