Growing potatoes in a tower is a space-saving, high-yield method that has gained popularity recently. Whether you have limited garden space, have poor soil conditions, or just want to try a fun and efficient way to grow your spuds, a potato tower could be the perfect solution. Here’s why you should consider growing potatoes in a tower.
Maximizing Space Efficiency
One of the biggest advantages of a potato tower is its ability to produce an impressive harvest in a small area. Instead of spreading your potato plants horizontally, a tower allows them to grow vertically, making it ideal for small gardens, patios, or urban settings.
A simple tower can be built using materials like wire mesh, wooden boards, or even pallets, accommodating multiple layers of potatoes into a single compact structure.
No Mounding Up
Potato towers are designed to encourage vertical growth, through existing layers of soil and straw. This means you don't need to mound up the potatoes as they grow like you would with traditional methods.
Better Disease Management
Growing potatoes in a tower can help reduce common pest and disease problems. Since the tower raises the plants off the ground, it minimizes the risk of soil-borne diseases, rot, and pests like wireworms and slugs.
Additionally, the controlled environment of a tower makes it easier to monitor and manage any potential issues before they become major problems.
Improved Soil Conditions
Not all gardeners have the luxury of rich, well-draining soil. A potato tower allows you to create the perfect growing medium by layering compost, straw, and quality soil.
This ensures that your potatoes have the nutrients they need to thrive without being hindered by poor native soil conditions. This can be particularly useful if your natural soil has poor drainage.
Ease of Harvesting
One of the most frustrating aspects of traditional potato growing is the labor-intensive harvesting process, which often involves digging and potentially damaging tubers. With a potato tower, harvesting is much simpler.
By disassembling the tower or removing layers of soil, you can easily access the potatoes without excessive digging, making the process cleaner and more efficient.
How To Make A Potato Tower
In this guide, I will show you a really simple way to make your own potato tower using wire mesh, straw, and compost.
To start with you want to cut your mesh to size, the longer you cut it the wider your tower will be. This will mean you can plant more potatoes but it will be more expensive to fill with soil and compost. Have a play around with potential sizes and find one that works for you.
Then you need to join the two ends of your mesh together to form a circle. In the photo below I show the rod method - just weave a rod or cane down through the two sides of the mesh - interlocking them. Alternatively you can tie the sides together with metal twist ties.
Once you have the structure assembled, it is time to start adding straw. Fill the bottom 6" of your tower with straw. You can also start building up the sides a little too.
Your aim here is to build a sort of bowl in the straw where you can add your potatoes and compost.
This is the sort of bowl shape you should be aiming for with your straw. We will fill this up with compost now.
Then once you have this built you can plant your seed potatoes. The number of seed potatoes you use depends on the type of potato.
Here I am planting a small salad potato so I put quite a few seed potatoes in, if you are planting a larger potato then you won't need as many.
You could also use halved potatoes to reduce the seed cost.
Once you have your first layer done you repeat the process. Cover the seed potatoes with compost, then add straw on the top.
Then build another level the same way, with straw, then compost.
You continue to work your way up the tower like this, adding layer after layer of potatoes.
Once you have reached the top of the tower give it a good soak!
As the potatoes grow they will begin popping out through the sides of the mesh.
You can harvest in sections if required. You don't have to harvest the whole tower at once, you could remove the top layer while allowing those lower down to continue growing and sizing up.
Or alternatively, you could undo your ties and let the whole thing collapse for an easy harvest with no digging!
Cutting Seed Potatoes in Half - Bigger Harvest?
This is one of those gardening things that some people do while others will have never even heard of.
Cutting your seed potatoes in half to get extra seed potatoes.
The premise is simple enough: you cut your seed potato in half before planting, doubling the number of plants you get.
But does this work? And if the plants grow, do you get the same-sized harvest?
I was intrigued to find out, so I ran a mini-trial of my own this year, using Charlotte potatoes.
I had four bags filled with the same compost, and then two would have half a seed potato in and the other two a full one.
Would the half grow? Would the harvest be the same? Let's find out.
Here are the potatoes, full, half, full, half from right to left. They are all in the same compost and will be grown in the same spot.
When cutting your potatoes in half, you need to let them cure for a bit and skin over the wound before planting - just a little tip if you do decide to do this yourself.
The Results
So now it's time to harvest the spuds and see the result.
These were Charlotte potatoes, so an early type which means we are expecting to harvest smaller "new" potatoes.
Looking at the foliage things don't look too different, but were not bothered about the foliage - time to find out what happened underground.
The harvest of our first tuber, which was cut in half, comes in at 277.7g
And the second half tuber comes in at 188.2g
The first full tuber harvest comes in at 336.2g
And the second full tuber comes in at 316.5g
| Half or full | Harvest |
| Half | 277.7 |
| Half | 188.2 |
| Full | 336.2 |
| Full | 316.5 |
So it's pretty clear already that you will get a much smaller harvest if you cut your seed potatoes in half, but how much smaller?
Well, when we combine the numbers, we get 465.9g vs 652.7g
That's a whopping 40% larger harvest if you use full-seed potatoes rather than cutting them in half.
This is just a small trial with only four plants in it, but it has shown a very clear difference.
Next year I will be trialling this again but with maincrops, so keep your eyes peeled for that and why not sign up for my newslett
Eugene Vargas says
I love your articles, interesting and helpful.
Daniel says
thank you 😀
Craig Jackson says
Hi Daniel. How do you know how much to water these towers as you cannot see the compost? Really intrested in building these as I normally Bucket grow but end up with buckets everywhere. Also how much sun would grey need? Ta
Mafwalal Maju Simon says
You ideas are so simple and easy to understand.I will try some in my garden for the potatoes.
Daniel says
thank you 🙂
Dan says
Daniel- will the wire tower method work for sweet potatoes also?
Daniel says
yes it can work for sweet potatoes too 🙂 just place the slips through the straw manually
John Stahlbaum says
I cut my seed potatoes by the eyes going on it. Sometimes I will get 5 or 6 seed eyes from 2 potato. If you want the real test, you would take these cut eyes and count all 5 or 6 as 1 potato.
Then plant your whole potato in the next tower.
Harvest the 5 or 6 as 1 potato = 2400g
Then harvest the 2 potato = 720g
This is how you decide if you plant whole or cut eyes. Remember the 5 or 6 eyes are still only 1 potato.
Cutting eyes gives you aich larger yield
Daniel says
I am going to try this method this year and run the test again. I will also be trying to grow plants from removing the eyes and starting them almost as cuttings
J Porter says
Daniel; Enjoyed this article on growing potatoes. I especially liked it that you posted so many pictures.
Something that might be particularly helpful is to know what zone you are in.
We live in Colorado at 6,700 ft. Therefore gardening is always a challenge for us.
So if you have any advice for us we would be grateful.
Daniel says
I am in the UK so we don't really use zones in the same way that you do in the US. I believe the most similar region over there to us is the pacific north west
Daniel says
Thanks for sharing. I will try this out.
Stanley Mitchell says
You didn't compare fairly. Since you cut the potatoes in half you need to add the two halves together to compare them to planting whole seed potatoes. When you do this the 465.9 is compared to the 336 and 316 unless you used just as many seed potatoes but cut them in half before planting and them planted them all in the same container.
Daniel says
no this is a valid point. But it all comes down to space, if you have unlimited space to grow your potatoes then you will get a bigger overall harvest with halves. but if you are limited on room then you will get a bigger harvest by buying more full seed potatoes
Steve says
You biased your math... If you account for the yield from one seed potato, then cutting them in half wins 469 to 336. Your experiment showed that you SHOULD cut your seed potatoes in half if you have LIMITED SEED or if you have UNLIMITED SPACE. If your seed is limited, you will get more yield from cutting them in half. If you have unlimited space, then you also should cut them in half to use as much of your space as possible. If you have the same amount of seed as space, for example, four spaces and four seed potatoes, then you should leave them whole.
Daniel says
yes if you have unlimited space, but who has unlimited space?
Eva says
Thanks for sharing this wonderful idea. Unfortunately, the only place I can grow things is on my concrete patio. Can I do this on it?
Daniel says
Yes you could. I would ensure there is plenty of room for drainage at the bottom of the tower though. Maybe add some rocks etc to the bottom then compost on top of this