Our Potato Growing Guide covers planting, growing, and harvesting one of our favorite vegetables! Also, see tips on how to store potatoes to keep them fresh—and some homemade potato recipes.
Potatoes can be planted very early in the gardening season—as you soon as the frost is out of the soil and you are able to work the soil!
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.
See more information about planting potatoes below.
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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?
potato taste
Potatoes can taste off for several reasons, even after cleaning and scrubbing and peeling, which removes any actual soil left on the potato skin from the garden. Be careful about storage conditions – make sure they do not get any light (which makes them turn green and taste bitter), and avoid any high temperatures, which can change the flavor, too. Growing conditions can also affect flavor and health. Check the potatoes for any signs of disease – mold or rot – that might affect the taste; cut off any discolorations.
Can u just send me a comment
Can u just send me a comment to my gmail say hi so it can go faster
My gmail is noahburns002@gmail.com
Adding soil will they be ok?
Hi it is my first time growing potatoes and I had seen that you need to add soil to your plant after it has grown so tall. Well I didn't really know what this meant until doing further research. Well what I did was cover the entire plant with dirt.... ENTIRE plant. Will it be OK did I hurt it? I know now you just add soil to the base of the plant and. Uild upwards but I heaped it directly on the plant I have one starting to poke back through the surface but not sure about the others if they are coming through or not
Hilling Potatoes
You are right, it is usually best to leave the top group of leaves alone, but for the first hilling (which is what we call adding soil to potatoes), the plant can generally recover fine even if all leaves are covered. It is a good sign that one of the plants is starting to come up again, and hopefully others will follow!
Potatoes
Is it ok to cut the above ground foliage? If so, what are the rules? Also are potatoes which have appeared from previous years edible? Thank you.
Potato growing from potato boxes
I am growing potatoes from potatoes I purchased at WM they were from the actual seed area so they are not store bought potatoes like you would purchase to eat. I am growing them in potato boxes. I found the idea from the Internet. I built the boxes 8 inches and the potatoes grew great the plants are 3 foot tall as they grew I added more wood to the sides and added top soil as they grew. They are now dying I do not know why. The plants leaves have a brown area on them with holes like something is eating them. I have put down grub x and 7 dust the plants what can be killing them?
Brown Potato Leaves
It appears that your potato plants might be suffering from late blight. Watch this video to learn more about how you can stop the spread and save your potatoes.
Potato growing from potato boxes
From Walmart? If they aren't seed potatoes, don't try it. Most potatoes sold for eating are sprayed with sprout inhibitor and will not sprout. However, if they are sold as organic potatoes they will not be treated with inhibitor, and will probably grow just fine.
cutting off tops
Can I cut off the tops of my potatoes as they have taken over and I cant see where the actual plant is to lift and keep damaging the potatoes.
potatoes didn't flower and are dying
I planted my potatoes in a grow bag and hilled them quite often. I thought they were doing great until they started dying but didn't flower. Does that mean that I won't have any potatoes?
Not all potato plants flower;
Not all potato plants flower; you still might get potatoes under the ground. Check carefully in the soil to see if you feel any potatoes developing.
Little red potatoes growing
I dug down quite a bit and found some little reds growing so I tried to replant them and water them well. Hopefully that will work. After digging the soil seemed really to be in good condition as I was suspicious that I may have watered them too much.
most of the plants are dead(3 still growing)
I decided to go ahead and see what I had in my bag. I planted Pontiac Reds in a potatoe bag and followed the instructions pretty well. I thought they were OK until they started to die and they also never flowered. You told me previously that sometimes they don't flower. I have a lot of very very small red potatoes. Some no bigger than a marble. I want to try it again but am fearful that I missed something. I took a picture but it appears there is no way of sending it to you. I am looking for any suggestions so that I can have a fruitful crop. I also have two other potato crops growing in planters and they also seem to be doing OK with flowers. I am going to wait on these as they are still doing great or at least that is the way it looks.
Blue Potatoes-First time Grower
My daughter brought me home some baby blue seed potatoes from her work, so I dug a trench and planted the potatoes, when they got a little taller I put some dirt around them, but that has been it. I have these gorgeous really really tall potatoe plants, that have flowered. I didn't hill the dirt, ever again. So my worry is will I have potatoes? One of them has one of those poisonous berries growing on them. The plants have no bugs and look super healthy. Being a first time grower I had no clue what I was doing, I was excited about attempting to do a garden. The plants are tall so I used some stakes and string to help hold them up.
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