The Leaning Tower of Potatoes

April 27, 2025

On Wednesday (April 23), with some minor help from Bruce, I built two potato towers. I had some 4 feet tall chicken wire that I used for the tower. Bruce cut the chicken wire into 2 six feet lengths. On each length, he fastened the two ends together. This produced two tall skinny towers to fill.

I mixed up dirt for the potato towers, 1 part Bama dirt, 1 part vermiculite, 1 part cow manure compost and 1 part coconut core in the tubs. Being able to shift the mixture between two tubs allowed me to get it well mixed. I repeated mixing dirt up as I ran out of the dirt in filling the potato towers.

Normally, potato towers are built by layering straw and dirt, with the potatoes planted in the dirt layer. Not having straw, I used the small oak leaves Bruce had raked in the fall.

With the first tower in place, I put a layer of leaves in, about 4” tall, pushing some of the leaves to the side, making a nest. I then filled the nest with dirt. I placed the potatoes around the edge of the chicken wire.

I covered up the potatoes with more dirt and sprinkled some chicken manure fertilizer on the dirt. I added layer of leaves over the dirt, making a nest again. I repeated the process until I was about 6 to 9 inches from the top of the potato tower.

I repeated the process for the second tower.

I still have potatoes to plant.

On Thursday, I had an early appointment to get another mammogram and a sonogram. Ugh! Everything was fine though, I just have dense tissue in one breast.

We went to breakfast afterwards at Milla’s Place in Florence. They are a nice diner, good food with great prices and service.

After breakfast, we grocery shopped. Then, it was time for my PT. I am feeling better with the PT.

After PT, we headed home.

After all the groceries were stowed, I happened to look out the kitchen window. The view looked strange. I realized one of the potato towers had fallen over. Noooo! All that work, fallen over!

We went out to survey the damage and to determine how we could repair the problem. We also discovered the second potato tower was leaning. It reminded me of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Bruce came up a solution and implemented it quickly. We were afraid the leaning tower of potatoes would fall over.

Bruce pounded in a t-post next to the leaning potato tower. We pushed the tower upright and using wire, Bruce attached the potato tower to the post.

I only took pictures after we were done, so in the picture below, to the left you can see part of the other tower after we righted it.

We then took the fallen tower and tried to right it. We had some trouble. The fall had split open part of the connection of the two ends.

We did manage to get tower upright and the split closed. The tower is now misshaped and sad looking. I just hope the potatoes are okay and will grow fine.

We took a look at the garden beds at Blackberry Homestead. The Japanese mustard greens, komatsuna and mizuna looked beautiful. I over planted the mizuna by mistake with komatsuna. It still looks beautiful as the frilly leaves of the mizuna grow in with the broad leaves from the komatsuna.

More Irises had bloomed.

On Friday (April 25), we enjoyed walking around and seeing the honeysuckle blooms. The blackberries are starting to make fruit.

After seeing how well the greens were doing, I decided to harvest the outermost leaves of the komatsuna, Mizuna, mustard and turnips. I pulled four of the radishes and saved off the greens.

This is what the komatsuna and mizuna looked like when I was done with the harvest. This is my second harvest of komatsuna and mizuna.

I made a hortopita (Greek Greens Pie) for supper with all the harvested greens. I admit, I just made a pizza dough instead of using phyllo for the pie.

Earlier on Friday, we got two of Nox’s medications via UPS and our burn barrel via FedEx. The burn barrel came in a flat pack to be assembled.

Bruce and I put it together while the hortopita baked. It is cuboid instead of a cylinder.

I did not take any pictures of the assembly, but in another post, I’ll have pictures of it in use.

After supper, we enjoyed sitting on the porch and watching the sunset.

The potato towers seem to be stabilized, so we currently have two towers.