This year I have so many potatoes to plant I need some quick and cheap DIY potato planters. So I’ve done some digging (pun intended) and have found 2 ways you can get potatoes growing on your homestead. Let’s dive on in and I’ll show you how!

Back Story of Cheap DIY Potato Planters

I recently got my sweet potato slips in the mail because I was silly and didn’t think to grow my own. Oh well, there’s always next year.

So once they arrived I knew I wouldn’t be able to plant them in a permanent potato box outside. We were still getting some cold nights and I didn’t want to take the chance of them dying.

I actually stumbled upon this idea from Lisa Steele’s website, Fresh Eggs Daily.

This idea is actually more popular then I realized. I love this idea so much I knew I had to share this with everyone.

Benefits of Cheap DIY Potato Planters

This first DIY is great if you have chickens or something of the like. This DIY calls for feed bags. Having ducks and chickens myself, I have plenty of these bags. You could also use empty plastic compost bags or if you use wood pellets to heat your home you can use those bags as well.

These options are great if you need something quick and cheap but the ground isn’t an option, this one works great. This idea will also work great if you only have a small porch or balcony to plant on living in the city.

Lets not forget, they save you money since we are using scrap wood and empty grain bags.

Though, once these bags are filled with soil after a couple months you may not want to move them. I only move them in the early weeks, just to keep my plants safe from the cold weather. After that to you can keep them outside in a nice sunny location.

How to Make Grain Bag DIY Potato Planters

Equipment

• Grain bags or something similar
• Scissors
• Old window screens
• Potting soil or top soil
• Compost
• Straw

First thing, grab your grain bag and fold down the top until your about 12 inches from the bottom.

Next place the bag on a flat surface to flatten out and square off the bottom of the bag.

With your scissors cut 4 to 6 holes in the bottom of the bag that are about 1 inch in diameter.

Now cut a piece of your window screen to fit on the inside bottom of your bag.

Now prep the soil you will be using and add that to your bag. You’ll want to add 4 to 6 inches of soil to the bottom of the bag. I used a mixture of top soil, compost and straw.

Once your soil is in place plant your sweet potatoes. It’s recommended to plant one sweet potato plant per square foot, so I’d plant 1 per bag since each bag is roughly 1 square foot.

Water your plants well until their well established, about 4 days is recommended.

Place your planter in a sunny location and keep adding soil as needed.

As your plant grows you will need more soil to cover up the exposed plant leaving the leaves just visible above the soil.

As your soil gets higher to the top of the bag you will need to unroll it as you go.

Once it’s time to harvest you can either cut down the side of the bag or gently dump out the contents onto a tarp so you can save the soil for next year and it makes for easy clean up.

Tip: If you find that your night temperatures will be below 60 degrees its recommended to not plant your sweet potatoes outside. Since these are in a bag with little soil you can bring them inside until the morning when it warms up.

How to make a Wooden DIY Potato Planter

So for this potato planter we used all scrap wood. Just like when we made our DIY Raised Garden Bed, we used scrap wood that my husband was able to find. We made each tower 2 feet by 2 feet and 40 inches tall. Whatever wood you can find will work, the wood listed below is what we were able to find. I just want to give you an idea of what you can use.

Also, I will be planting regular potatoes in these potato towers but you certainly can plant your sweet potatoes in these as well.

Equipment we Used

• Chop Saw
• Screws
• Screw Gun
• Eight 1×6 boards 2 feet in length (you will need more as you keep adding soil over the season).
• Four 2×2 boards 40 inches in length ( you may not need to add this much soil, but it’s good to have extra if need be).

Note: Depending on the wood you are able to find, you may need to pre-drill if it is something that may splinter easily. My husband recommends using a 1/8th drill bit.

Instructions

Place your 2×2 boards vertically with your 1×6 boards placed horizontally at the bottom.

Screw your 1×6 boards to the bottom outside of your 2×2 boards to make a box.

We added a second layer of 1×6 boards to make it deeper for planting the potato seeds.

I used a mixture of top soil and compost with some straw mixed in.

Prep the soil that you will be using in your potato tower.

Fill your potato tower with soil at least 4 inches deep.

Plant your sweet potato slips in your tower, it’s recommended 1 plant per square foot. So for this you should be able to plant 2 per tower.

Keep your planter in a sunny location and well watered but not over watered.

As your plant grows, add more soil to cover the plant, leaving the leaves visible just above the soil.

When the soil reaches the top of the 1×6 boards add on another 1×6 board to the outside on every side of the tower.

At the end of the season all you need to do is unscrew one side to expose the soil and sweet potatoes. I recommend pulling the soil out onto a tarp to easily save the soil to use it next year and make for easy clean up.

Growing Roots on your Sweet Potato Slips

Update on my sweet potato slips, after having them planted for about 4 days I found that the roots on the slips I had not yet planted were growing very well. This reason is due to them being in a jar of water. Now this being my first year planting sweet potatoes I may have not been watering them well enough, it seemed like I was. Instead I chose to gently remove the slips from the grain bag planter until I can get some good roots on them. I will then plant them outside in the grain bags once it is plenty warm enough.

So my plan for next year will be to grow my own sweet potato slips and place them in a jar of water until it has warmed up enough outside that the night temperatures are at or above 60 degrees.

Stay Tuned for Updates on my Cheap DIY Potato Planters

At the end of the growing season I will update everyone on how my sweet potato planters turned out. I am eager to see how many sweet potatoes I get from each plant.

Being Memorial Weekend this would be a great time to build you own Cheap DIY Potato Planter. In New England this is the recommended time to plant your garden outside. Why not give it a try? You could get some delicious potatoes out of them!

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Do you have any tips for planting potatoes? Let me know in the comments below!

Happy Planting!

The post Cheap DIY Potato Planters appeared first on Natural Living Homestead.

This DIY raised garden bed is pretty simple to make. The best part is it’s made with 75% scrap wood. My husband and I were able to build it in just a couple hours and get it set up in our front yard. He was actually able to move it by himself 50 feet in one piece to its final location.

Finding Materials for your DIY Raised Garden Bed

We began our new year trying to figure out how we could add some more raised garden beds to our yard. I searched Google and Pinterest for ideas in what we could make for pretty cheap but stay together pretty well with out crumbling after one season.

My husband got thinking and said he was able to get some scrap wood from where he works. There’s a constant supply of wood that they toss in the recycling daily. He thought these would be perfect for a couple raised beds.

We decided to make the beds 24 inches high, 4 feet wide and 8 feet long. Most of the scrap wood that he got would be able to be cut in half for the walls, one being the proper length and the other just an inch or two shorter. Not ideal but it worked and only gave us just a few short pieces on each side.

Making it 4 feet wide is perfect for me. I can then easily reach the middle of the bed without having to lean too far over the bed and compress the soil.

Then having it 8 feet long to give plenty of gardening space without having to put a middle brace to keep it from bowing out.

We did end up buying some 8 foot long 2 by 4 pieces of wood for the framing.

If you would rather not purchase any wood you can take apart a bunch of pallets and make some raised garden beds with them.

Reasons to make a DIY Raised Garden Bed

No kneeling down

If you, like me, have issues kneeling down for long periods of time, certainly a raised garden bed is perfect for you. For whatever reason, kneeling down makes my knees make a good amount of noise when I stand up. Not comfortable at all.

Easier to tend to your vegetables

If you make your raised bed to the height that I made mine it is a lot easier to tend to the vegetables. Weeding will be easier because you won’t have to bend over so far. Another great bonus is that it will be easy to harvest your vegetables. Things like tomatoes and peppers, will be at eye level and you can easily pluck your tomatoes from the vine. So divine!

Protects your plants

Where I live we have a lot of underground and surface springs. This means any vegetables in the ground have a high chance of being washed away if not planted in the correct location. So when we get heavy rains we have streams that pop up around my yard. Then if it gets really bad we will have almost a sheet of water running over parts of our yard.

Also if you have wild rabbits in your area this will keep those cute furry critters from eating your precious vegetables. I’d be surprised to see them jump up into these raised garden beds.

How to make your DIY Raised Garden Bed

Equipment

Table saw

Miter Chop saw

Two by fours 8 feet long (12 boards)

One by fours 22 inches long (about 80 boards)

Decking screws about 2.5 inch length (roughly 200 count)

Electric screwdriver

Tape measure

Pencil/Pen

Directions

Frame out two, 4 foot by 8 foot frames.

Attach vertically your 1 by 4’s on all four sides on the inside. This way the soil pushes the boards into the frame instead of away from it.

We did have a few gaps that we needed to cut some boards to fit, we ripped them down with the table saw.

Along the top on your bed, lay flat a 2 by 4 on each side. This is to give you a nice spot to sit on. This also covers the raw edges of the boards below to prevent it from rotting away too quickly.

We also added some braces to each inside bottom corner with some scrap 2 by 4’s to keep the bed squared.

What to Fill Your Raised Garden Bed With

At the bottom of all my raised beds I put a layer of wood, about 6 inches deep. I have used tree bark and branches from cleaning up my yard. If you do not have any logs available you can also add leaves. You can then top it with some wood chips if you have that on hand as well.

Doing this is a great way to clean up your yard. Doing this will add some bulk to your raised bed so you don’t have to add so much soil. Though the best reason for doing this is that over time this will break down and add some organic compost to your bed and as it breaks down it will give off a little bit of heat.

A couple times I have added cardboard over the branches to hold them down so they don’t poke through the soil.

I was able to contact my local tree removal service to find woodchips to dump in my driveway free of charge.

Another thing you can add to your garden bed is peat moss. I added this to the top layer of my soil and mixed that in well. Then if you want to add an extra boost to your soil you can add compost. Your plants will love you for that.

If your looking for compost you can ask your local dump or water treatment facility if they have any. In my town they have some that you can go pick up.

Tips for making your DIY Raised Garden Bed

• You can line the ground with 1/2 inch or 1 inch metal fencing. This will help to keep any rodents from getting under your raised beds, then making their way into your raised beds. No one wants to find their root vegetables nibbled on by those furry creatures.

• You can also line the inside walls of your raised bed with gardening cloth to keep the wood from deteriorating so fast.

• If you want your raised beds to last many years you can use cedar wood. Cedar wood is naturally rot resistant so this would be a great substitution for regular pine wood.

Have you made your own raised bed before? Do you have any other tips to add to the list? Let me know in the comments below. I love to get your ideas!

Check out my previous post HERE on making soil block seed starters to get your garden started!

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Soil block seed starters are a simple and inexpensive way to get your seeds planted. With this method you can skip those plastic seed cups and trays. Just grab some soil, water and a tray to get them started.

My husband and I have been using a soil blocker for a few years now. I like that they are very simple to use and make very well compact blocks of soil. With each soil block there is a small hole in the top that is made from the soil blocker. This hole is just the right depth to plant most seeds. You can then cover it with a bit of loose soil or like I do, just pull some of the soil from the edges of the block to cover the seeds.

Using soil block seed starters saves so much time and I then don’t need to use the flimsy plastic sheets of seed starting cups. Like these trays below.

I unfortunately didn’t think ahead enough this year and did have to use the plastic seed trays to keep my soil blocks in. It came with the plastic cover so I can have the greenhouse effect for my soil blocks since I do not have a green house at the moment.

Next year I’ll probably switch over to wood trays. This would be roughly a 9 inch by 13 inch board that’s about 1 inch thick with a 1 inch by 4 inch board added vertically to the length of 3 or 4 sides. This will make for a very sturdy tray to hold my soil blocks. Unlike the plastic ones that are flimsy and twist if not held evenly.

Different Size Soil Blockers

There are 3 different sizes when it comes to making soil blocks. There are 1/4 inch, 2 inch and 4 inch.

The 1/4 inch tends to be used more by commercial growers. If your looking to grow a lot in a small space this size would be good for you. Though once the seeds have sprouted they will need to be transplanted sooner. This can either be done in a pot, the ground or put into a 2 inch soil block. This soil blocker will give you 5 blocks at once with a small hole made into the top of each one. Though there are others that can make 4 times that amount of blocks. Like these below.

We went with a 2 inch soil blocker since this is more of a standard size to start your seeds in. You will get four 2 inch soil blocks with this one. This is the size soil block you would transplant your 1/4 inch blocks into. Once your plant outgrows this size, once again you can plant into a larger container, the ground or into the 4 inch soil block.

When it comes to the 4 inch soil blocker it only makes one at a time unlike the other soil blockers where you could get 4 or more blocks.

Peanut butter consistency

When it comes to making the soil blocks you need to make sure that your soil to water ratio is just right. I like to refer to Johnny’s Selected Seeds when it comes to soil block equipment and a quick “how-to” video for this. They recommend a peanut butter consistency when mixing water into your potting soil. If there is too much or too little water your blocks won’t form properly.

How to make Soil Block Seed Starters

Equipment You may need

Potting soil of choice

and of course water

Hand trowel to mix soil (optional)

Gardening gloves (optional)

A large container of choice (I like the rubber feed pans)

Soil blocker of choice

Seed starting trays (wood if you can or plastic)

Directions

To make our soil block seed starters, I used a 2 inch soil blocker.

In a rubber tub I add my potting soil and water and then mix well until I have a peanut butter consistency.

I then take my soil blocker and press it multiple times into the potting soil to press as much soil as I can into each compartment.

Making sure to press firmly onto the bottom of the pan to firmly compact the soil into the soil blocker.

Then I scrape off any excess potting soil that is sticking out from the bottom of the soil blocker.

You don’t want to skip the previous step. This makes sure your soil blocks sit level on your trays.

Grab your seed starting tray and place your soil blocker at one corner and squeeze the two handles together.

It will then push out all your blocks onto your tray neatly with perfect holes in the top of each block.

If your blocks did not form properly, i.e crumbly or soggy, just add them back to your soil container and add water or soil as necessary and then mix well.

Now just continue making your soil blocks for as many as you need.

Once I have all my soil blocks established it’s time to plant your seeds. Since each block has a small hole in the top for the seeds I don’t usually need to do anything more.

Add the seed and cover with soil as your seed packet directions recommend.

If I happen to have a seed that needs to be planted at a 1 inch depth I will take a stick or pencil and make the hole a bit deeper and push the seed down into it.

Seed starter potting soil recipes

There are many potting soil recipes online if you prefer to make your own soil mixtures.

You can add things like peat moss, bone meal, compost, and lime. If the soil you will be planting in is lacking in a nutrient you can add these things to the soil for your soil blocks to help give your plants a boost. Or maybe your planting in containers and don’t want to use commercial potting soil.

I have yet to migrate into that level of gardening, so unfortunately I do not have a potting soil recipe. So at the moment I just use a bag of organic potting soil from my local hardware and that has worked for me thus far.

Do you have a potting soil recipe you’d like to share? Let me know in the comments below.

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