How to Build a Potato Tower

Grow your own potatoes in a small space with a tower.

Growing your own potatoes can be hard work. However, if you build your own potato tower, you can grow them vertically and have a much easier time planting and harvesting them. Grow almost any type of potato in a tower, including baking potatoes and sweet potatoes. A potato tower is not only a work saver, but it also protects your garden from animals that may dig up the potatoes.

Things You'll Need

• Chicken wire or bamboo fencing, about 6 feet
• Stakes, about 3 feet long
• Twist ties
• Compost
• Straw or other dried compostable material
• Seed potatoes

Instructions

1. Choose a spot in your garden for the potato tower. It should be in full sun and on level ground. Clear the spot of any weeds or other vegetation.

2. Tie a length of chicken wire or bamboo fencing in a cylinder using twist ties or zip ties. Place a tie every 12 inches or so along the seam. The diameter of the cylinder should be about 18 inches.

3. Stand the cylinder on end in the cleared garden space. Pound a wooden or plastic stake inside the cylinder and next to it. Pound in three more stakes inside the cylinder and next to the sides to create supports for the tower. Use more stakes if you need more stability. When you fill the tower with growing medium, it can easily topple.

4. Line the inside of the tower with straw, coconut fibers or other dried compostable material up to about 12 inches in height. This prevents the compost from falling out. Fill the lined area with compost up to about 12 inches.

5. Embed some seed potatoes in the compost so they are about half buried. Place them about 3 inches from the sides of the tower and from each other. Do not embed more than 6 seed potatoes.

6. Add another layer of about 12 inches of compost. Embed more potatoes as described in Step 5. Continue layering compost and potatoes until the tower is almost full.

7. Water the tower so that all the compost is moist.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep the potato tower watered throughout the growing season. Do not let it completely dry out.

• Add more compost to the top of the tower as it settles over time.

• The green part of the potato plants will grow out the sides of the tower.

• To harvest the potatoes, wait until the vegetation has died back and remove the ties along the seam of the tower. The compost will fall and potatoes will be revealed.

References

• The Practical Herbalist: Potato Towers
• YouTube: No-dig Potato Bamboo Tower