Gardening for Cave Dwellers - Part I

I have always loved gardening ... growing things. In Oregon I had an herb garden, grew vegetables and had outstanding flowers. Here in Hawaii, we live in a townhouse and have absolutely no place to plant anything -- even if it wasn't against the rules. This leaves me with clean fingernails, but no communing with mother earth. I have been looking for ways to garden without having a plot of earth to garden in.

Subscribing to Organic Gardening and Mother Earth News is rather painful when you can't put into practice the gardening tips, but then as I was going thru the archives at Mother Earth, I ran across this little article Taters in a Barrel by Peggy Mills (Maybe its the Irish in me, but I love potatoes -- baked, fried, boiled, mashed, au gratin.)

First, get yourself a barrel. I happened to have a 32 gallon garbage can kicking around in the storage room.

To prepare your growin' bin, poke a series of holes-spaced about six inches in each direction-in the bottom of the container. The drainage provided by the bores will help keep your spuds' "feet" dry ... an important consideration. Then spread a sheet of fiberglass screening over the holes, and put about six inches of soil in the bottom of the barrel. Next comes a four-inch layer of sawdust . . . and-with that in place-you're ready to plant the seed potatoes.

I chose organic seed potatoes, then I cut their little eyes out and embedded them in the first layer of mixture.

Then, each time these young'uns grow a couple of inches above the woodwaste, dump in another load to cover 'em up, and give the crop a soaking. Since the new potatoes form above their parent eye, you are-in effect-creating room for more down-home delicacies each time you bury the plant! By the time the container is full, you'll have two or three feet of barrelgrown beauties to harvest.

I will keep you posted on the progress of my tater garden, but am hoping to have nice new potatoes by Easterish.