Potato Tower Experiment

So I've been reading on Pinterest, my favorite site of course, on how to grow potatoes utilizing the "tower" method.  There are many different opinions on this subject, however I've combined some, and just made my own version so here it goes.  I bought some fencing wire, which really is dangerous by the way, it has thorns and prickers on them so USE GLOVES!  After clearing the bottom of the area out, I placed a nice bed of hay on the bottom, made like a bowl out of the hay, and layered in some compost I bought from Green Planit.  I did not add any ammendments, manure etc, just simply the compost. 

A few days prior, I bought a bag of red seed potatoes from the local Wal-Mart, cut these up into cubes, making sure each cube had at least 2 eyes on the potatoes.  Most had already started to sprout, making this task easier than I had anticipated.  I placed the cubes in a circular pattern around the compost I had placed over the hay, making sure to face the eyes outward towards the wire.  I then followed the same pattern, of hay, compost, potatoes, hay compost, potatoes etc. until I had not more potato sets left.  I toppoed it all of with some more compost, and then hay and watered the devil out of it after each layer of potatoes.  Below is the picture of the finished potato tower. 

 

February 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the potato tower as of March 23, 2013.  The potatoes are growing up and as they grow, I will continue to add some compost, and hay, layering just like before.  Supposidly this will increase the yeild of potatoes.  Time will tell.