Let's feed Africa with potatoes!

Headline:  How to grow 100 pounds of potatoes in four square feet

Okay, so this is really cool. 100 pounds of potatoes, in four square feet, in three months. We could feed Africa (or, alternatively, the entire United States for our Thanksgiving dinners) for...a very long time. However, I'm sort of skeptic about how realistic this article is. Though this is merely a synopsis of the article from the Seattle Times, there two things that caught my eye that did not quite add up (sorry Africa):

1) For starters, they said nothing about soil conditions. Maybe I'm nuts, but if I can REALLY grow 100 pounds of potatoes, you would imagine that conditions and necessary treatments would be different in the desert as opposed to, say, the perma-flooding area that is Seattle. I just think that that sounds a little strange, especially if the guy writing this is a gardener (it is coming from The Seattle Times' home and gardening section.)

2) It says that I can plant this anytime between April and August, and still have three months to harvest. Can I just point out that by November, things have gotten just a little chilly in most parts of the United States, and it proves very difficult to grow much of anything at that point, let alone potatoes or anything leafy and green.


So, I'm still not too sure about this whole potato in a box thing. I think that I'll try it over the summer, if I can convince my mother (unlikely) to buy me the expensive materials to do this (now that I think about it, completely impossible).

Hopefully, however, this does work out for whoever tried it..though honestly, who in their right mind wants or needs 100 pounds of potatoes within four square feet?

Just some food for thought.

See what I did there?

That's right.