A friend recently purchased a new house. As he showed me photos of his back yard, we discussed the copious amounts of fresh vegetables he would be able to grow. I was envious of

his space! I have a small city lot. I double plant in spaces, use my fence as a trellis for cucumbers and cram as much in as we can eat. As it happened, another friend chimed in about his plans for peppers, tomatoes and potatoes.

"Wait a minute, POTATOES, your lot is smaller than mine!" I blurted, "How can you grow potatoes?"

Then he showed me these photos of his Potato Bin. Fantastic! I had heard of using tires to grow potatoes, but something about having my food so close to rubber makes me squeamish.

To build his bin, he re-used 4x4 pieces of lumber from a deck reconstruction job; and he went to the Bargain Area of the lumber yard for the sides -- using cedar planking that was miss-cut, was a little bent, or had too many knots. He picked up several bags of manure to eventually fill the bin, and seed potatoes. They spent less than $25.

According to the plans, he should get about 100 pounds of potatoes from his bin. Not a bad investment. It proves to me again that you can grow food anywhere!

So who is going to bring some lumber to the Plant Swap on Saturday? How about potato starters? That would certainly trade for some large leaf hostas.