The Best Gardening Tips for Growing Your Own Potatoes
So many varieties to choose from!
Don’t be fooled by the diet gurus who tell you potatoes are bad for your health! Potatoes, and other native tubers, have sustained humans for thousands upon thousands of years.
Potatoes are rich sources of Vitamin C and folate, and important minerals like potassium, magnesium and calcium. In fact, potatoes have more potassium than bananas do! Being a root crop, they also accumulate a wide array of micronutrients important for our overall health, such as copper, manganese and iron. (for a full listing see the USDA Food Data Central)
Potatoes come fully loaded with plant-based (phytochemical) anti-oxidants, especially the colored skin varieties (red, purple) which are high in anthocyanins. Potato skin typically has 10 to 12 times more antioxidants in it than the flesh.
All of this is why potatoes are a great choice for your home garden. Not only can you work with a much wider array of types and sizes than what you can find in a store, but you can ensure they are growing in high quality soil to maximize their incredible health potential.
Let’s take a look at the best ways to start your own potato patch this spring.
How to start a potato patch
Lucky for all of us, potatoes are one of the earliest plants you can start in your garden and very easy to grow. I just picked up my seed potatoes from the local garden store yesterday.
Seed Potato Sources
While you can actually grow potatoes from what you buy at the grocery store, many of those spuds have been treated with chemicals to reduce the chances they will sprout (which makes the soft and not so good for cooking).
It’s usually best to either work from potato tubers you saved yourself (we’ll cover this in Successful Seed Saving 101 later this year!), or buy certified disease free seed potatoes.
Do not confuse “seed potatoes” with “potato seeds”. These are not the same thing.
Seed Potatoes = potato tubers you dig out of the ground. They form off the roots of the plants and they are the only part of a potato plant that is safe for humans to eat. Tubers grow into exactly the same kind of potato plant as the parent.
Potato Seeds = the potato fruit that forms after the potato has flowered. Although they kind of resemble a tomato in shape, they are toxic to ingest. They can be planted and can grow into new potato plants but they will not produce the same kind of potatoes as the parent, especially if cross-pollination has occurred.
Where to plant potatoes
Potatoes like full sun and need nutrient rich soil. While the tubers you plant are often small, the plants can take up a LOT of space in the garden.
You also need to consider when you want to harvest the potatoes. There are early, mid and late season varieties. All of them get planted in the early spring, up to several weeks before the last frost is expected. For me, that means I can plant my potatoes any time now (bioindicator plants for me: my garlic, walking onions and chives are all up in the garden which tells me the soil is warm enough for potatoes too).
It is best to plant potatoes in groups according to when you plan to harvest them. In a square foot garden system, that would mean 1 potato in each square foot, with the seasonal varieties grouped together like this:
How to plant the tubers
Each tuber or piece of potato you plant into each of the squares in your garden row needs to have at least 2 to 3 “eyes” (aka little potato sprouts) in order to produce a crop of potatoes.
Each piece should be no smaller than egg, but can be any size bigger. If you have very large seed potatoes with lots of eyes, you can cut those into pieces to make more individual plants in your garden. It is best to cut the potatoes one or two days before planting so the wound develops a bit of a skin on it (so it’s not a fresh cut going into the ground).
Potatoes need to start out about 2-3 inches (5 to 8 cm) in the ground which is not all that deep. But the trick to getting lots of potatoes is that as the shoots grow up out of the ground, you hill the soil up around those stems. Each time the stems reach 8-10 inches (20-25 cm) above the soil, you gently rake or hoe the soil up around those stems until only the top few leaves are growing. If you are working in a raised bed, add organic material to achieve the same result. Repeat this 2 or 3 times before the potatoes flower and you will greatly increase your potato yield.
You can use garden soil, well rotted compost, straw or other organic materials to cover up and hill your plants. Last year I made the mistake of using some compost that was not fully finished. When I moved it onto the potatoes it aerated the compost and caused it to heat up, killing off a bunch of my plants. Oops. Note to self - don’t do that again!
Besides increasing yield, hilling helps to keep the tubers covered and protected from the sun. Sunlight on potato tubers is what turns them green. That green color indicates that chemicals toxic to humans are forming - don’t eat green potatoes.
You can also do some companion planting with potatoes to help enrich the soil and create shade. Beans and squash are good choices. Just remember that 1) you will be hilling the potatoes so keep that in mind if you are adding other plants in around them and 2) you will dig up the potatoes which will likely kill anything growing beside them.
Alternative ways to plant potatoes
You can also plant potatoes in raised beds, pots and grow bags. Raised beds works the same way a garden row would. Just add organic material on top of the bed as the potato shoots grow.
If you are working in a pot or a grow bag, you will want to add just an inch or so of soil on the bottom and cover your potatoes lightly. Then as the potatoes grow, keep covering them inside the pot, leaving just the top leaves each time. When the stems pass the top of the pot or the grow bag, you can’t add any more soil. At that point, just keep them well watered. To harvest just dump out the pots and pick up the tubers.
Tips for best potato yields
Planting potatoes early in the season is not without some risk. While the tubers can withstand frost, the shoots can be frost sensitive and die back, which will slow down your potato crop and may reduce yield. If a frost is likely and you have potato shoots above the ground, either cover them entirely with mulch or use a row cover until the danger of frost has passed.
Potatoes need heat, lots of nutrients, and even watering to produce big yields. Changes in watering can lead to tubers with hollow centers, which can sometimes develop mold or fungus. Try to maintain an even watering pattern throughout the growing season.
Tubers start to form after the flowers are finished. If you planted a crowded patch for nuggets, you can begin taking new potatoes within a week or two after flowers have formed (usually within 50-55 days). But main season harvests of potatoes usually take much longer 60 to 80 and even 110 days depending on the variety.
Grow Heirloom Potatoes For the Best Variety
There are so many potatoes in the world it is a shame that most grocery stores carry only a few basic modern types. Grow heirloom potatoes for the best selection of color, flesh characteristics, size and season.
This year I am growing a few tried and true types that I know I love plus one that is new to me.
My potato row will have :
Kennebec - hands down the best producer of disease free tubers in my garden; thin skin and white flesh.
Sieglinde (German Butter Potatoes) - yellow skin and yellow flesh; great in soups and stews.
Gem Russet - which is a smaller and faster variety than Burbank, which has light brown skin and cream colored flesh and are superb for baking.
Russian Blue - because I love the color, but they can be really hard to find if you have dark rich soil. Blue to purple skin and flesh.
Sangre - this one is new to me. It’s a red skinned, white fleshed potato that is supposed to be exceptionally high in Vitamin C. Worth a try!
There are so many varieties to try and so many ways to cook potatoes. Which ones are your favorites? Leave a comment.