Potatoes Harvested from a Straw Bale

Grown in a straw bale, these spuds (potatoes) were VERY easy to grow. I had a leftover straw bale from my neighbor's Halloween decorations. I poured some human urine into the bale over the winter and let it compost. In spring, I stuck a piece of a potato in the straw bale, occasionally watered it, and the spuds grew. Harvesting was VERY very easy, with my bare hands just plucking the spuds out of the straw bale. No need to dig. This was great for a sunny spot on concrete. If I had put the straw bale over soil it probably would have been even better since then the roots could have spread beyond the bale.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• straw bale
• straw bale gardening
• organic
• organic gardening
• growing potatoes
• organic garden
• urban gardening
• potatoes
• potato
• spuds
• harvest
• harvesting
• digging potatoes
• dig potatoes
• no dig
• no dig potatoes

[alan30189]

The ones near the surface look green. They are toxic. Do not eat those.

[OrganicGarden123]

@alan30189 Yes, green skin on spuds usually means that they have been exposed to sunlight, causing a toxin to form that can indeed make you sick. Best to avoid green spuds!

[peaceniq]

About the bale...

As far as prep goes, did you only add the urine and let the bale sit over the winter? Just urine? It looked black and soil-like. It looked very good, actually!

Thank you for sharing your experiment.

[OrganicGarden123]

@peaceniq I did toss maybe one shovel of dirt or compost on top of the bale in the autumn, and then through the winter I would pour on top a gallon of urine maybe once a week, which would trickle down through the bale (rain too), no doubt trickling down some dirt/soil also. Happy gardening!

[paulpellicci]

...don't you think watermelon sharing the bale defeated the spuds?

[OrganicGarden123]

@paulpellicci Yes, I do think that I "over-planted" my straw bales. Planting spuds and watermelon in one bale was probably over-doing it! But it was my first year trying it and I was just experimenting so I'm happy with what I got. I think that in the future, you are correct that less plants per bale is probably better. Happy gardening!

[thatbastardson]

oh man. keep those baby ones. they are good eating.

[McHenryAnge]

I think you got a great yield considering you did everything but shoot them to stop them growing.

You can tell by the way the leaves were reaching they didn't get near the recommended sun.

To my mind, if you had used a tomato cage and fluffed out the straw as the leaves grew, you would have gotten much more.

That up there on the scale of "cool". Certainly going to try it. Thanks.

[OrganicGarden123]

@eron1979 Thanks for the tip!

[eron1979]

loosen the bales it lets the potatoes grow big, i hump up a row of straw in the garden for my potatoes (leaves work too) then cover with dirt, my red potatoes grow as big as a soft ball and taste great.