A year or two back I built a couple of potato towers. Various magazines recommended this approach for growing red potatoes so i decided to go all in. My two attempts to grow potatoes this way failed miserably and resulted in a handful of potatoes during each growing season. Not being one to accept failure I decided to try once more this spring. This time I went with a smart pot and used their suggested growing method.
At first I thought I hit gold. My seed potatoes put on massive growth and I was quick to back fill over the potatoes to allow more tubers to form. Then it got hot and my red potatoes succumbed to heat and disease. I ended up harvesting about 10 potatoes at the end of the season and this is definitely the last time I try to grow them in towers and smart pots.
My sweet potatoes on the other hand did fantastic and they appear to handle heat and pests much better then red potatoes. I pulled up roughly 40lbs of potatoes this fall and these will definitely be a yearly addition to the garden. If you’ve had success growing potatoes in towers / smart pots please let me know what you did to succeed. After three attempts I’m throwing in the towel.