hello this is mark from iron organic
gardening and today i want to show you
how to plant up the easiest thing you
can plant in your garden is potatoes and
now is a good time to do it the reason
why because the temperatures are still
cool and it's early and it doesn't
matter if they're red potatoes or brown
potatoes indeterminate determinant and
that just means early late or
mid varieties now
if you don't have a green thumb watch
this video
it's the easiest thing you can grow in
your garden and it will produce at least
anywhere from five to six more potatoes
depending on the soil that you have
they're so easy to do and this video
will show you so stay tuned we're going
to plant them in a free cardboard box
and i'll show you a close-up of that
very shortly
easy to do like i said
the emphasis on easy and guess what
you're going to have a successful garden
of potatoes growing them in a cardboard
box and you'll love yourself for it and
if you don't like potatoes you should
try them at least
because this is the utmost amazing thing
you can grow and will give you
confidence to get that green thumb going
so we're going to start out with a nice
size brown box and i'll give you the
dimensions a little bit but it's got to
be brown cardboard we don't want
anything glossy that's not good for your
garden now the brown box here also has
and i'll give you a close-up on this
has a nice little certificate label here
how strong the box is see here that the
wheat or the gross weight of pounds that
it can hold is 95 pounds anything that's
at least 80 and higher in a number is a
good strong box to put in your garden
now you can see here the box has its own
dimensions on it which is very rare but
anyway here we have it's 18 and a
quarter inches long this way 11 3 4
inches
that's the height from the bottom of the
box to the top of the box and this is a
width 10 and 5 8. the most important
number is the one in the middle here and
that's eleven three quarters now we want
that's our height we want a box at least
eight inches
tall because that's how much soil we're
going to fill up in the box once we put
our potatoes on the bottom
next step is we want to remove any kind
of shipping label that's on there too
that's not good for our soil and also on
the bottom of the box here we have
plastic tape when we want to remove that
we don't want that in the garden either
we just ripped off our plastic tape so
we'll just put that in our trash to
start with the bottom of our box first
we're going to fold in all the flaps
we're not going to leave we're going to
leave it open to the bottom we want good
drainage and this is going to be our top
now our top we're going to do the same
thing we're going to fold it inwards
like so
and now we have a nice
double wall container here
like that
nice and we're all set to go now we're
just going to pick a spot in our garden
like so
put it down
and we're all set for planting i have my
container set on a bed of leaves now if
you don't have leaves it doesn't matter
you can set it right on top of the soil
in your garden you can place it right on
top of the grass and know you don't have
to put anything down on the bottom the
grass will not go through because you're
going to be adding eight inches of
material here and that will not let that
grass grow up especially in the
springtime
this size box we're gonna plant up two
potatoes
and we're gonna put them about let's say
six to eight inches apart not touching
each other
now what's nice about this is that
they're already growing and i did some
other videos you can look back that they
were tested prior to planting and again
if you're not sure always buy organic
potatoes they will sprout earlier for
you than the other store-bought potatoes
and that's what i'm talking about here
store-bought potatoes
now we have them just laying right on
top of leaves and again they can lay on
top of your soil or you can lay on top
your grass the choice is yours what you
want to do i want to share a very
important little tip and i don't know if
you heard this from anybody else but
it's a really great tip now we have our
potato here that's growing already now a
lot of people to save on cost of
planting up their potatoes they'll cut
this in half like so
now just be careful
now what you're going to do when you cut
this let me get this
cut right so
prior to planting
you're going to take this and cut this
about let's say
oh a couple days ahead of time always
two to three days ahead of time so it
forms a nice scab on top of the potato
now
almost done
very dull knife today for some reason
now you can see i have two pieces here
and those two pieces
and it's very important now this one's
kind of a small one it does have an eye
on it but the most important thing is
not how many eyes are on the potato when
you cut into pieces and this is where a
lot of people go wrong with problems in
the garden now this one has at least
maybe two or three that are growing here
now the key to this is the size that you
cut you can't cut small pieces
this should weigh at least one ounce
before you plant it and after it scabs
over it's got to heal a little bit for
again for two or three days but the key
point is those
eyes here isn't the amount of eyes on it
is the size of the piece that's left
here now how does you how do you
determine
how big of a piece that you cut off or
weight if you don't have a scale at your
home or something like that here's a
little trick if you have
five quarters in one hand that weighs an
ounce just kind of put the other potato
in the other hand and then kind of
balance them out and you'll know that
this is going to weigh at least an ounce
because you can just balance it out
between the two and that's going to give
you a successful planting of this potato
here's a bag of worm castings that one
of my subscribers wanted me to test out
so they sent it to me for free and i'm
going to be working with it this year in
my garden every so often compared to my
own worm castings
now what's key to this is that you want
to take the worm castings or compost or
your own soil and we'll work on your own
soil a little bit too and you just want
to cover that potato you don't have to
cover the whole box with potato you just
want to cover
the surface of a table like so and at
least about another inch on top because
it's going to go around the reason we're
doing this is because
all those eyes that were in here like so
these eyes
they're all going to be sending roots
out from this area too and those roots
want to
pick up nutrients and water
we don't want to worry about the whole
rest of the box or anything else either
we just have to worry what's around that
potato
here we have our other potato that's not
covered yet so we're just going to take
our own native soil
and place it right on top of that like
so
now what you can do just to be on the
safe side i don't know how much soil you
have available or compost you can use
compost too
but if you want to you could put at
least
let's say four inches of soil inside
this container and then build it up from
the bottom up and that will be fine but
if you don't have a lot you can do what
i just did now i prefer you to fill up
the box at least four inches
up to the top already with soil compost
your choice i don't know what you have
and then we can fill the rest of the way
up with leaves or hay
now also too if your soil is not that
good and you're not trusting it again
buy some earthworm castings you only
need a hand for it too
now the other thing you can do which is
awesome
is you can take used coffee grounds now
this box you know the size already so i
can take at least
two cupfuls of coffee grounds and
lightly sprinkle it in there and build
my soil up or material in here and just
put that in there and that will keep
things from sticking together and give
aeration to your soil because potatoes
love to have it where it's easy to grow
from the surface up and also too
potatoes don't root downwards they will
root upwards only
here we have at least four inches of
soil from the bottom of that box upwards
now what you can do is if you don't have
enough soil here would you oh what's
this ah nice little worm in there let
him be or she'd be in there now what you
can do is the rest of the way or just
for covering right now we can add leaves
on top
like so
to keep that soil moist now again you
should water this in and you should make
it least wet but it will drain through
to the bottom and you always want to
keep it let's say mildly damp throughout
the growing season so these leaves are
going to protect it from the wind and
also from the sunshine later on too and
the potatoes will grow up through that
and we can add more leaves to the top of
the box cardboard box will at least last
you for anywhere from 80 to 110 days
long in your growing season now it might
be different per areas but i found that
that does very well it doesn't have to
hold the strength of a lot of soil in
there so it's not going to bow out or
break or fall apart and also too the box
is made of cardboard that's fungi food
and fungi food is actually something
that you want in your soil so all those
microbes that we have in our soil right
now that we put in there or whatever we
put in even leaves is going to break
down that fungi material and actually
help those potatoes grow
so how easy was that simple store-bought
potatoes organically grown putting in a
box that are already sprouting and also
they don't even have to be sprouting if
they're organic just put them in there
they're going to be fine and covered
with some soil especially around the
potato itself on top of the potato don't
worry about the bottom so much and
everything will be fine now also too
when you lay out your cardboard boxes
the only thing that you're going to come
in trouble with in the future is
something called colorado potato beetle
and i'll go over that in a separate
video now that's going to come along and
lay eggs in your plant now it can be
very let's say harmful to your potatoes
and we're going to what you're going to
do is we're just going to put a netting
over the top of it so
look in the size of the nettings out
there and then then you want is at least
to go up at least two feet and then put
a dome over it and also to weigh it down
on the side so you got to have enough
room so let's say if you just make a
single row here and it's like say the
netting is only four feet wide then you
have plenty of room to make a dome over
the top of your potatoes to keep those
colorado potato bees off we don't like
to spray too much and even if it's
organic but again we don't have to worry
about it we can put a netting on top
because the
potatoes don't have to be pollinated by
bees so something to think about when
you lay out your garden or your box is
out there and then it will be all fine
in the future thanks for watching give
it a thumbs up and please subscribe i
want to see you back here again shortly
so we can update you on the potatoes and
grow through the whole year again
there's early mid and late varieties
it's all about timing anywhere from 80
to 110 days and it doesn't matter you
don't have to worry about it from your
storyboard potatoes it's just that you
have to just keep them moist in a good
growing condition thank you very much
and i'll see you soon happy gardening
bye