Growing potatoes in sand/sawdust mix:
“Amazing Sweet Potato Harvest: 139 lbs. from 3 potatoes
I planted them in April in sand and sawdust and fed them with the Mittleider weekly feed mineral fertilizer. I really didn’t do much more than that but the sweet potato harvest was amazing! Sweet potatoes are highly nutritious and store well when cured properly. This is a great preparedness food.”
YouTube
Watch the other LDSPrepper videos to learn more about this sweet potato planting method.
“No Dig Potatoes: Peter Cundall shows you how to grow potatoes directly on top of lawn using the no-dig method. This segment is extracted from Gardening Australia’s Patch From Scratch DVD.”
Growing potatoes in straw/manure or rich soil mix: (This is a good method if you have hard/rocky soil, because the potatoes are grown on top of the ground. Like the video above, no tilling needed.)
“Virtually unknown to people in other parts of the world, the inhabitants in the Northern European countries have for hundreds of years grown potatoes above ground in straw or other mulching material. It is a method of growing potatoes that works. Little effort is needed to grow flourishing potato crops in this unusual manner. Amongst those who plant potatoes in straw or mulch there is a saying that goes, “even a couch potato can grow a good potato crop with very little work.”
In the vegetable world, there are few that yield more than the potato crop, and this is even increased when potatoes are planted in straw. By using straw mixed with a bit of rich soil or manure, it is easy to grow a bountiful crop in a limited space. It is a great way to grow potatoes for those who live in urban centers where space and cultivatable land are usually hard to find.”
More at the source: Colorado State
Note: you can use a layer of rice hulls instead of newspaper as a weed barrier.
Note: A key goal of this blog post is to show how to grow lots of healthy, calorie dense food for minimal effort to help fight hunger in poverty areas.
John Kohler of GrowingYourGreens doesn’t recommend certain aspects of the Mittleider method, in particular the synthetic chemicals. It’s a long video so you might want to start around 6:30 if you want to hear his opinion.
Go to YouTube and search for this video:
6 Reasons Why I Don’t Use the Mittleider Garden Method