According to a TikToker, you can use your laundry basket for more than dirty clothes — it can also help feed your family.
Using the simple three-item method shown in her video, Barefoot.mimosas (@barefoot.mimosas) can host a tower of potatoes for easy harvesting.
@barefoot.mimosas POTATO TOWER TIME! I do the laundry basket method and have always had a great turn out! The only thing I forgot to mention in the video is make sure you drill four or five holes in the bottom so it doesn't hold water and you get mold! Happy gardening 🩷 #potatotower #selfsufficient #selfsufficiency #urbanhomestead #homestead #canningandpreserving #garden #gardening #foodstorage #gardening101 ♬ original sound - Randy Rogers
"I've done it like this for three years now and it works for me and I love it," she says.
The scoop
The goal of the hack is to build a "laundry basket potato tower" to grow potatoes with minimal space. Before you begin the process, prevent water buildup and mold in the basket and "drill four or five holes in the bottom." Now you can prepare the potatoes.
Cut some seed potatoes into chunks — each chunk should have a few sprouting eyes on it. You'll also need some straw and compost or soil.
Build your tower by starting with a layer of straw, compost, and five to seven potato chunks in that order, and keep layering until it reaches the top.
End with a layer of straw over the soil and wait for those vines to find the basket holes and grow out of them. When it's time to harvest, dump the basket over and enjoy.
How it's helping
If you love potatoes but don't have a big field, using vertical farming to grow your own food may be the solution. Vertical gardening is a technique to grow a range of healthy, fiber-packed food and herbs in things such as stackable pots, towers, baskets, and shoe holders.
A popular online gardener grows micro-dwarf red robin tomatoes in this manner. Another one uses a strawberry pot for their tomatoes — these pots are tall with a large opening at the top and side cup-like openings that allow runners to come out. Don't forget about your window sill. While it's not vertical, you can access sunlight there, and it's a small but available horizontal space to grow microgreens in tin cans.
Using such spaces as an alternative to long rows of tilled soil can help apartment dwellers or those without backyards save money on groceries and have better control over what they eat.
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What is the biggest reason you don't grow food at home? Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. |
Not enough time ⏳ After all, many people agree that food tastes better when you grow it yourself compared to store-bought produce.
What everyone's saying
"This is such a great idea," proclaimed one user.
Another potato gardener advised: "After cutting your potatoes, I always give them a day to form a skin over the cut. Then plant. Helps a ton to keep it from rotting."
Someone else even used this basket-growing method with fruit. The commenter said: "My grandparents did this with strawberries, but they would fill it with dirt and would pop a few seeds in each laundry basket hole."
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