alt Hacker NewsOff-topic but I have to say that potatoes are incredibly easy to grow, and doing so is very worthwhile.
I have a small planter on my balcony at the moment which is thriving with leaves, and in a few weeks I'll dig out the harvest to see what I got. People grow them in very poor soil, and even in literal bags of compost, or buckets. They're easy-going and almost trouble-free.
Growing chillis, tomatoes, or herbs on window-sills is kinda fun and rewarding, but growing a "proper crop" feels even more rewarding. And surprising because you have to wait until you dig things up to see how well you did!
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My wife and I did the same with two planters outside my apartment, first time trying our hand at container gardening. We are about 10ish days from harvest and exited to see what happened. If the amount and health of the leaves are any indication, we should pull a meal or two's worth out of it for what amounted to very little effort and care. Fingers crossed!
We tried carrots, but they came out very stunted, even accounting that they were a smaller variety. The container we used was likely too shallow.
Does anyone have other vegetable suggestions for us apartment-dwelling container growers to try? We have a few different size containers available ranging from about (in inches) 12x12x36 to 24x24x24 and space for more.
One of the most gratifying things I've done in the garden was grow a potato tower. The first time I used a variety which doesn't root out very well from stems, so the results were really disappointing. A few years later I figured out my mistake and tried with a more suitable variety, and it was like a vertical potato farm in a 1.5m radius. We were so excited with how many potatoes came out, haha. I never expected knocking down a pile of soil and discovering potatoes to be so exhilarating. Especially after the first run was such a disappointment
I threw potatoes into the back part of my yard without burying them or tending them in any way and they did quiet well. Ended up dying from a freeze, I think I will throw them more strategically next time.
I tried planting ones I've left in storage for too long once, even buried them a bit underground. The next day the only thing left was snail trails ):
Where I am it's often not warm and dry enough through summer for chillies and tomatoes. If there are a few cooler, wetter weeks then they do poorly.
Potatoes are a bit better in that respect.
But in poor weather conditions, blight can easily set in on the potatoes and tomatoes. Which makes it a lot less worthwhile.
That’s essentially half the plot of the Martian, they were pretty “easy” to grow. ;)
All with you on the general idea that growing potatoes is easy and great. That being said, just a detail:
> People grow them in very poor soil, and even in literal bags of compost
a bag of compost is pretty much the exact opposite of "very poor soil"; it's about the richest soil there is.