The Leaning Tower of Pizza 🍕 I mean Potato 🥔
There is a slight problem with the potato tower. It has started to lean.
I am holding off on planting more potatoes in the stack because the problem has gotten pretty bad.
You can stop planting, but all the potatoes that are in the stack are still growing they need to be led to the side and through the netting even when the tower is leaning.
At first, I thought that the netting had come unglued from the rim of the clay pot. That would cause me to stop the project and wait for the plants to grow, or until it collapses, and expedite and early harvest. It is winter here and the sun hasn't even risen high enough in the sky yet for the sun to directly hit the leaves. Without direct sunlight, I would imagine the harvest to be pretty meager.
Either way, we are going to try and fix the problem. I need to know the pitfalls of the project before a start another one. I checked to see if the glue had come loose. It did not seem like it. Then I noticed this on the side of the lean. . .
The Situation...
It is hard to just grab it and pull it over till it's straight because the plastic netting is very flexible. And besides that, there are plants which are tied to it and they don't want to break them.
At first I thought the dirt was being washed out on one side and it would be hard to backfill one side about a foot and a half down from the surface.
I have an idea for the next tower and I think I'm going to try it on this one, but first I need to make it stand straight. Once implemented, after it's straight, I will be able to tell if this will solve a future problem that may occur on a future tower.
Let's get started!
Gravity cause this problem, I'm thinking gravity can fix it!
As we saw in the second photo, the flexible plastic netting is wrinkled on the side to which it's leaning.
So I started stacking some spare wood under one side, the side it is leaning toward. Then I watered it in order to add more weight and they exposed dirt.
I know I have some maintenance to do. There is no need to comment that there are a few fresh plants that need to be tied to the netting. I will take care of that!
Now that step one is in progress, letting gravity do the work, Let's talk about what to do after it's upright again.
I have a bunch of dowel rods at a pretty thick, and I'm thinking if I could push those through the dirt, down to the very bottom of the pot, and tie them to the netting - they may hold the column of dirt and keep it from leaning again.
I think they would slide more easily when I go to sync them down into the dirt if they were threaded through the plastic netting. So that's the plan!
As seen in one of the earlier photos, the rod was standing next to the pot and I marked the netting at the height the rod will be when the fix is complete. Then I started clipping the netting and inserted the rods only down to the surface of the dirt.
I will not push them down to the bottom of the pot until the netting is straight up again. After that, I'm thinking it could still wrinkle, but it should not lean.
See how much rod is still sticking out at the top? that is the exact height of the pot itself.
I kept moving a little piece of wood closer to the center of the pot, thus leaning it more and more. And I was waiting for it to start leaning the other way, or rather, straight up and down according to the angle of the pot.
Eventually it was nearly straight. I was eye-balling it. When I was satisfied, I pushed the rods all the way down to the bottom of the pot. This should help it stay straight and not lean.
That done, I should be able to start making more layers and planting all the way to the top. My fingers are crossed that this will resolve the problem.
Days later, this is the final result. All that is left to do is wash the patio floor! I am wondering if this fix will hold as I fill this with layers of potato plants - all the way to the top.
Based on the growth it is showing with the dirt only 40% of the way up, it may end up looking like a potato tree!