Towering II

Towering II

An Update on the Potato Towers

August and September 2015

Have they worked?

Yes, no, and I don't know yet.

Finally, purple potato plants were coming up. I don't know if it was the variety of potato or the growing method that made them late-comers. The plants grew vigorously. About every day, they would be taller and I would add more mulch to the towers. It wasn't easy to keep up with them. I envisioned piles of purple tubers developing under those piles.

I alternated between the well-rotted leaf mulch from our neighbor and the dry grass from Richard's lawn mowings.

Then I made a mistake.

One of the latter times I added mown grass, it was a wee bit green. Then it rained, rained and rained. The microorganisms loved the green parts. The microorganisms got very busy. The microorganisms created much heat from their vigorous activity of eating, moving about and reproducing.

Heat and dampness cause rot. My lovely potato plants started drooping, one after another. Then rotting, one after another By that point there was nothing I could do about it. One large plant hung on, looking healthy, tall and determined. But, eventually even it succumbed.

As Thomas the Tank Engine once said, “It's okay to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them.” I learned that one should not mulch live plants with anything that has the slightest bit of green. Be patient and wait for it all to turn crisply brown before you use it. If the weather had remained dry for a long time, it likely would have been fine. Possibly all of the mulch would have dried in the towers before it could cause a problem.

But, sometimes it rains. Even heavy dew can contribute to disaster, given the right situations. Don't hedge your bets. Don't gamble with live plants – just do your best by them, and be observant.

So, I let it be. All of that mulch would still enrich the soil in that raised bed when it would all break down. And, for all I know, there could already be some potatoes in there – they may have had time to form and grow before their upper, chlorophyll-filled, photosynthesizing, food-producing counterparts bit the dust.

Well, there must have been.

Recently, I took a look at the sorry piles in the towers and saw three little purple potato plants peeking above the mulch in one tower. Evidently, there were little potatoes (maybe even big ones) in there, and they sprouted new plants.

Hope springs eternal.