My sister inlaw gave me a receipe for growing potatos. Get hold of a few truck or car tyres and place them 3-4 high fill with dirt and chopped straw and plant potato eyes in the dirt, water in and tend as a garden. you will soon have spuds. If you buy potatos make sure you buy ones with plenty of eyes not only can you cut them out and plant them, but potatoes with eyes will see you throughout the weeks ahead.

Another quick garden for growing food can be made by laying down sheets of newspaper or cardboard watering them as you go (make them very wet) on a marked out section of your yard, build up the sides with bricks or logs if you desire but not needed. If you lay them overlapping right over your lawn you will efectivly stop the grass growing into the plot, go about 1 - 2 inches high with the cardboard and paper, next place 1- 2 bales of straw or grass clippings to about 6 - 12 inches on top and water in and stomp down (not too hard but enough to compress it).

You can then make holes in the straw down to the paper, (about the size of a bucket bottom) and fill with dirt up to the top of the straw, put in the seedlings or seed, water and grow. If you have never grown vegies before now would be a good time to start.

Timothy Wilbur

-- Timothy J Wilbur (timkaz@nor.com.au), July 30, 1998

Answers

Timothy, In New Zeland and I think maybe elsewhere what you describe is known as Irish Murphy's barrel of spuds (traditionally the trick was to use a water barrel). I have done it this way and it works. Another easy technique is simply to cut diagonal rows of slots (at 45 degrees) in a lawn to a depth of 6 inches and plant the seed potatoes in the slots. Rows two feet apart seed one and half feet apart. A fast, low cost way of growing spuds. Plant the potatoes after the last of the spring frosts are over. Harvest when the tops die off in Autumn. No skills required just a spade and seed potatoes. Keep the potatoes in a paper or jute bag. They will not keep well in plastic. Usually works only once for a particular piece of land. But then this will be a once only event won't it. Then you can go back to cutting grass and buying spuds.

-- Bob Barbour (r.barbour@waikato.ac.nz), July 30, 1998.

My uncle grows them this way. Start with one tire and fill it with dirt and plant seeds, when the shoots come through the top of the dirt add another tire more seeds and more dirt. also use a pvc pipe with lots of holes drilled in it, and stick it up in the middle so you can pour water/plant food mixture down into the stack.

When your ready to harvest jusk knock the stack over.

He also grows squash and okra in hay bales. Puts them in a slightly shaded area, soaks the bales with water for two days, then poke the seeds in.

-- Georgia Ranger (garangae@bellsouth.net), July 30, 1998.

Someone told me that newspaper print contains a lot of lead and toxins etc.I have used black plastic as a cover with 2 good results: the lack of light prevents weed germination; the ground heats up very fast and vegetables mature faster.This worked very well for cucumbers(esp.),peas, tomatoes,squash,peppers

-- Arthur Rambo (buriedtreasure@webtv.net), July 30, 1998.

I'm a terrible farmer, but looking forward to learning! My sister uses old, used carpet instead of the black plastic. You see old discarded carpet out in the street after people have had new carpeting put in. Just grab it and take it home. You lay it out flat, cut holes in it (spaced properly according to the plant), and put in the seeds or whatever. It holds in the heat, lets in and keeps the moisture, and prevents weeds. Easier and neater to walk down the rows for harvesting, too. Synthetic carpet is the best, like industrial grade. It won't rot like jute-backed carpet will. In fall, after cleaning up, she rolls it up for the winter. Pretty cool!

-- Gary Carlson (gscarlsn@erols.com), July 30, 1998.

Rambo: Newspapers are safe these days. The heavy metals that made colored inks, such as the Sunday comics, dangerous in earlier years aren't used anymore. Some papers even use soybean-based ink. That's why farmers now use shredded newspaper as bedding for their cows, even though the animals chew on it.

-- J.D. Clark (yankeejdc@aol.com), July 30, 1998.