Third Update on the Tater Towers

It was scheduled to get pretty cold last  night, so it seemed like a good time to help the potatoes out with more dirt and straw.

The first thing was to add some more dirt to the  red potatoes. Reminder: these were started from a bag of potatoes that started sprouting in the cupboard in January. Mid March, I stuck the pots in a couple of new Tater Towers, and darned near killed the greenery by dropping half a bale of hay on top of them.

They seem to have survived the trauma pretty well.

To each, I added:

•  About four inches more of dirt, with more straw around to hold it inside the wire.
• One red seed potato that is already sprouting (just below the new surface of the dirt).

Looks to me that I only have one more layer I can add.

Of the potatoes that I planted outside from seed potatoes in mid March, I have been concerned that they were failing. But this week, several sprouts have broken through. These are white potatoes (I think).

Got  about four of these, between the two other towers, at least one of which is purple.

When the seed potatoes weren't sprouting well, I took some of the leftover seed potatoes and started them in newsprint pots in the greenhouse. That seems to be a reasonable way to start taters.

In any case, this is the very first transplant: I just planted the entire newsprint pot in the soil, leaving the tiny sprout sticking its head out (that was about all that there was).

I've left the rest in their starter pots until they get bigger.


The Original Post.
The First Update.
The Second Update.