Help with squash & melon patch

[NH Homesteader]

I haven't grown sweet potatoes, they don't love my climate! So I can't answer that. But it worked with potatoes!

 

[baymule]

I wouldn't use tires, they are in the way the rest of the year. You can use the plastic feed bags that chicken feed comes in. One year, I raked up leaves, mixed with horse manure, sprinkled with lime, and let it set over the winter. Come spring, I planted potatoes and got the best crop ever from a leaf pile!

 

[CrealCritter]

Dang and @ $15.00 a pop that's more than the cost of a full bag of feed.

 

[milkmansdaughter]

Tires can also leach chemicals. Barrel "rings" work well too.(use a food grade barrel, and just cut it in rings. Put up a few stakes to keep your outer edge. Add a new ring and soil as your plant grows.) Good project if you're using old pallets too. If you put in a few stakes, then slats to make a simple frame. Add dirt and plant your potatoes. As the plant grows, add more slats to raise the sides of your bed, add more dirt. Keep the top 2 -3 inches of potato plant above the top of the soil each time you raise the level. At the end of the season, you can reverse the process by taking off a foot or two at a time.

 

[CrealCritter]

That's what we've done also. I will never do potatoes the "conventional" way!

Really... Just keep piling dirt up as the potato plant grows? Do this tire method work for sweet potatoes also?

 

[Britesea]

If you don't have tires, you can stack up scrap lumber and maybe some chicken wire to help keep it all together. I've heard of people using trash cans with holes drilled in them, but I wouldn't do it because of the chemicals they put in the plastic to kill bugs and stuff

 

[NH Homesteader]

I've heard of peiple using trash bags and leaves.... But I have no idea if that works or not.

 

[Britesea]

feed bags are good for so many things! You can even transport a chicken or duck in one if you don't have a carrier.
I know a woman that turns them into shopping bags as well

 

[CrealCritter]

feed bags are good for so many things! You can even transport a chicken or duck in one if you don't have a carrier.
I know a woman that turns them into shopping bags as well

Well I got A LOT of them... My wife asked me to save them. Last year we cut the sides of them and laid them down, pinned them with some bent lengths of left over electric fence wire in-between the rows of the garden. They are great for keeping the weeds down.

 

[baymule]

Don't use the plastic ones in the garden, only the paper. The plastic breaks down and makes a mess! The paper feed bags will rot. Use the plastic bags, rolled down and cuffed, for growing your potatoes. And the plastic bags make great shopping bags, beach bags or kids overnight bags.