Wondering how to grow potatoes? We’re here to help! The taste and the texture of homegrown potatoes are far superior to those of store-bought spuds, especially the early varieties. Here’s how to plant, grow, and harvest potatoes in your garden.
About Potatoes
“What I say is that if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.”
–A. A. Milne, English writer (1882–1956)
Potatoes like cool weather and well-drained, loose soil that is about 45 to 55°F (7 to 13°C). In warmer climates, potatoes can be grown as a winter crop.
Folklore offers many “best days” for planting potatoes:
- Old-timers in New England planted their potato crops when they saw dandelions blooming in the open fields.
- The Pennsylvania Dutch considered St. Gertrude’s Day (March 17, aka St. Patrick’s Day) to be their official potato-planting day.
- Many Christians believed that Good Friday was the best day to plant potatoes because the devil holds no power over them at this time.
All of these “best days” suggest an early spring planting! (See more about planting below.)
Reader Comments
Leave a Comment
potato trouble
Potato plants can fall over for various reasons. If, however, they look very healthy, it likely isn’t due to over- or under-watering, nor to disease or extreme temperatures. Sometimes the plants just get leggy, such as if the plants are too crowded, don’t have enough light, received too much nitrogen fertilizer, etc. And, when they reach a certain growth stage, falling over is fairly normal. Be sure to keep hilling them at intervals with mulch (such as straw) or soil, as this helps to give them support and encourages more potatoes to form underground. See the article above for more information. Good luck!
Planting season in Algeria.
What are the best seasons for planting potato in a zone with continental climate?
temperatures for growing potatoes in Botswana
Is it fine to start planting potato seeds in may or june in Botswana?is the winter temperatures in Botswana suitable for growing irish potatoes (using true potato seeds)?
Potatoes
What would cause the bitter taste in a home grown potatoe?
potatoes
Potatoes shouldn’t be exposed to the Sun, which will happen if you don’t hill up/cover them with soil. They’ll get sunburned, in which case they turn green and will taste bitter.
soggy potatoes
HELP! I have been planting potatoes for many years in my container garden; boxes and buckets. The last two years i have harvest potatoes that are so full of water that they can't be fried. When steamed and mashed they come our as if regular mashed potatoes were soaked in water. The also are sort of rubbery and don't mash. They chew like hard pieces of cucumber. I haven't done anything different than years before. I water every other day. I plant early. This never happened before.
soggy potatoes
Well, Jack, it sounds like your plants and so your potatoes are getting too much water. You say you water every other day…but not how much or what you climate is or anything else. That seems like a lot of water. Guidance above to “water regularly” to provide “consistent moisture” is not necessarily a soaking. If you are planting in containers, the water may not be running off as quickly as it might in an in-ground planting, saturating the plants as a result. And about those containers: If you are not rotating the crop/s in them, are you at least rotating the soil?? You don’t say, so we will only suggest that you can not have it both ways: same plants in same soil. That’s all we’ve got on this…except to suggest that if it never happened before, you must have done something differently.
This season, start with fresh soil, fresh seed potatoes, and containers with enough holes to provide good drainage. Good luck! Let us know how it goes.
Re:soggy potatoes
Hello. What variety of potatoes are you using? Genetics play a role as well. Some potatoes are naturally high in moisture. These potatoes are best suited for potato salad or home fries. Red skinned or new potatoes are fine examples. Other potatoes are naturally high in starch and are best suited for mashed or French fries. Russet potatoes are a fine example here. Some potatoes are dual purpose like the Yukon Gold. I personally don't think watering is the problem. If you are truly watering too much, then your potato plants would be suffering. Another thing, perhaps you are harvesting too early. But the first thing to confirm is your variety.
potatoes
i like french fries and sweat taters and hash browns and tater tots and bass fishing
potatoes production guidelines
could you please help me with an infor regarding potatoes growth I am in botswana
Irish Potato
I like the piece. I would also want to know how to control the pest. I am based in Nigeria
Row width
How wide should rows be ? I will be planting Irish Cobblers in the next week or so.
I am from Guelph Ontario.
Potatoes
I have grown, from eyes from potatoes, peelings really. I have grown successfully in bags previously....but I put them in the ground this time (built up from compost ) they grew tall...and when I dug them up the had brown blisters more or less all over them, but I peeled them and the inside is beautifully creamy white, and no blemishes, are they safe to eat?
Kind regards, dorothy
Potato harvest
Hi, Dorothy, It sounds like your potatoes have some kind of scab—there are numerous ones related to spuds. It may have been that the pH of your compost was not suitable. Do a pH/soil test to determine it. See this page for recommended pH: http://www.almanac.com/content/ph-preferences Note that pH is only one possible cause.
In the meantime, your potatoes—once peeled—should be perfectly fine to eat. Congratulations on a successful harvest!
Potato Farming
Farming process, diseases, fertiliser and harvesting
Dusting Potatoes
This was my first year growing potatoes. I had a good crop but they had scab on them. Should I have dusted them with sulfur and is an acidifier for blueberries the same thing and can I use that? Thank you.
potato scab
If you’ve had potato scab before, check the pH of your soil and adjust it to 5.2 or a bit lower, down to about 4.8. To do this, you can add sulfur. You can also dip the cut seed potatoes in sulfur before planting, to help deter disease, including scab. As for using a soil acidifier for blueberries – that plant likes the pH in about the same range. If your product is basically elemental sulfur, without other additives focused on blueberry growth, then it should be fine to use.
Potatoes Left Behind
Last fall I apparently missed some russets when digging up my crop and they replanted themselves. This spring I did use left over tubers from last year to plant my new crop (which I know is not advised). When I recently dug up this year's crop, to my surprise, the plants that grew from the potatoes I missed last year were much more productive than the ones I purposely planted. Why would this be? Is it that they simply got a head start?
The usual approach to
The usual approach to ‘volunteers’ is to dig them up because they get blight and the last thing you want is disease. But it’s up to you. If the potatoes seem good, just look at them closely and make a call. Most volunteers are poor. It’s all experimentation!
spuds
to allow you paid volunteers to flourish within you properly you have to provide them witha moist base lubrication
Potatoes
Hello I have been growing potatoes and I have noticed some small round green things that look like tomatoes just a bit harder I was wondering if you can tell me what they are please ?
small round green things . . .
Hi, Thomas, The small round green things on the potato plants … are potato fruit. Potatoes and tomatoes are in the same family (Nightshade) and are the most alike two plants in this family. Potato fruit and flowers are produced because this is how the plants multiply themselves—by seed. Both potatoes and tomatoes produce flowers; those on potatoes usually fall off and never develop into anything. However, … this year’s weather in some parts of the country—cool temps and rain—is “causing” (enabling?) them to remain on the plant, pollinate, and produce small fruit that resemble small tomatoes.
These are not edible; they are bitter-tasting and contain high amounts of solanine that can make you —or worse.
Trying to grow potatoes from the seeds could take years. Only breeders and growers find them useful.
So enjoy them. You may not see them again for a while. And your potatoes under the soil will be fine.
Thanks for asking!
Hi, I would like to know if
Hi, I would like to know if after you graft a potato and tomato together using well drained moist media, hydroponically with drip feeding, would the potato or sweet potato rot or become larger and better yields being left in the media until the tomato plant was pulled out after it's 3rd-4th harvest?
Farming
I want to be right guided about different farming
Rain go away??
I had 5 huge healthy potato plants and now none... :( all it has done is rain rain rain rain... I had two stragglers hanging on and they were about to spring back but guess what it rained again and today I looked and it looked like they were dying once again.. well you know what it's stinking 1 am and you know what it's doing again? RAINING!! I thought potatoes needed a lot if water/moisture? My potato box has plenty of holes in it for run off... I a so frustrated this was my first time for potatoes and they were so tall too they were about 4 foot high. Did the water really kill them?
potato troubles
How frustrating! Potatoes do like even moisture, about 1 to 2 inches of water a week. It sounds, though, as if yours got a lot more because of the uncooperative weather. You might still check below in the soil to see if any of the potato tubers survived and are still edible. Too much moisture can cause tubers to grow abnormally, such as cracks or odd nobs. The most important concern, perhaps, is that a lot of rain or overwatering, on leaves or in soil, can lead to disease, such as various wilts and rots. If you’d like to try again next year, and if you expect a lot of rain, perhaps you could devise a rain barrier (a large umbrella, even, might help to protect a single plant in a pot), or move containers under a shelter, if possible, during those downpours.
Small potatoes
I tried this year a bag for my potatoes. I planted them May 20 and yesterday I dig the potatoes out of the bag because the plant looked like part were brown dying. The harvest was a lot of dime and nickel russet potatoes. very little and maybe a little bigger some few. What did I do wrong?
voluntary potato plant
i have a voluntary potato plant come up. the plant is dying- it is half dying and stilll green. when i went to pull the grass around the plant i found 2 potato on top of the ground that had sprouted roots. i replanted them. will the orginal plant produce and will they be good to eat. should i go ahead and dig the original plant and can i eat the potatoes. and will the the 2 that i replanted produce potatoes before the end of october here in the state of indiana. my dad and brother were great gardeners but somehow i did not inherit their talent. thank you.
potato planting and harvest
Potato varieties will vary in the time that they take to mature, from about 90 to 110 days or more. Potatoes also like a soil temperature of 60 to 70 degrees F (not warmer or cooler). It may be too late to plant new potatoes now in Indiana. Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service in Indiana recommends that early-season potato varieties be planted as soon as the soil is dry enough to work in early spring; late-season types should be planted from late spring through mid-June. As temperatures cool in early fall, you could try to extend the season for your newly planted potatoes and see what develops – place row covers over the plants, encase them in tomato cages wrapped in clear plastic (with open top), or other measures to keep the heat around the plant and keep the soil warm as the weather starts to cool (do not do this during the heat of summer weather, though). Meanwhile, your original plant that still has some green to it and had already formed 2 potatoes – be sure to keep mounding soil around the base, or applying a thick layer of straw, to keep any developing potatoes from being exposed to light (which turns them green and somewhat toxic, and encourages the roots to grow, as you found with the two you planted). There might be some potatoes further down in the soil that are still developing. You might want to wait for harvest until the entire plant has died off (or at least when the tops of the plants have yellowed and are turning brown) for any developing potatoes to grow larger, or, if you’d rather not wait, you can carefully check in the soil to see if there might be anything there of a suitable size to harvest now. Gardeners sometimes harvest the smaller size potatoes as “new” potatoes in summer and early fall, before the tubers reach maturity.
Potatoes taste horrible
I've tried growing 3 different varieties, so far all of them taste like dirt. What am I doing wrong?
Pages