How to Grow a Great PotatoAmericans eat more potatoes than any other vegetable. Think about your current household food budget. How much do you spend per month of tater tots, fries and bagged potatoes? Shouldn't you grow your own? Growing potato plants in a backyard vegetable garden requires some planning and preparation but is not difficult, even for gardeners with physical limitations. Growing your own potatoes can be a rewarding culinary experience. By now most larger grocery stores carry gourmet potatoes. You see them in tiny plastic containers, similar to strawberry pints, for outrageous prices. When faced with the choice of the familiar russet in a 5lb bag for $3.99 or 1lb of baby potatoes for $6.95, most families choose the russet. Let's replace those images with new ones. A large bowl of creamy mashed potatoes, homemade home fries on a Saturday morning and hot roasted potatoes from your barbecue. Even seniors or people with arthritis or other physical limitations can grow potatoes. They don't need to be grown traditionally to yield great tasting, home grown potatoes. Potato BasicsPotatoes are annuals. They require a growing season of 80 to 120 days or more, depending on the variety, to mature fully. New or baby potatoes can be harvested before 80 days.While there are a few varieties that can be grown from true seed, most are grown from seed potatoes, also called potato sets. Seed potatoes are small potatoes, or pieces of potatoes, with at least one eye that sprouts into a new plant. When choosing or cutting potatoes for seed it is best to pick ones that are at least one square inch to give the plant enough energy to sustain it while it develops roots and stems. Do not use a seed potato with more than 3 eyes. It will develop a stem from each eye and grow a very leafy plant that will produce few potatoes because all it's energy goes into leaf development. You may plant your potato sets when the soil temperature reaches 45-50°. I start planting mine in March, 25 this year. In order to get the most of my limited space, I stagger the plantings by a few weeks. This usually gives me enough time to harvest a crop of new potatoes in late June or early July and replant the same area to harvest again in October. The potatoes will not be damaged by frost or even snow, while still underground. If the shoots are up, they can be damaged by frost. If you plant early, they will need the protection from late frost. Potato VarietiesPotato varieties can be chosen by color or taste, but most gardeners start out choosing by length of season. The lists below are divided into early, mid and late season varieties. An early season potato will be fully mature within 90 to 110 days of sprouting. A mid season 100 to 120 days and so on. You will know when they are ready to be harvested because the tops will begin to yellow & die back. New potatoes can be dug after the plant has flowered. New potatoes do not store. Use them within a few days of harvest.
SoilPotatoes need loose soil to grow in. Remove as many rocks as you can during the preparation of the bed. If your soil has a high clay content, you need to add some sand and leaf mold or compost to it.Do not use play sand. The grains are all a uniform size. It packs down tight (like a sandcastle) after a heavy rain. It is better to use all purpose or coarse builder's sand. It is sold near the concrete mix in most home improvements stores. The soil should be slightly acidic. A pH of 4.8 to 5.5 is usually recommended. A soil test kit or pH meter will determine your soil pH. Adding compost to your soil will improve both it's structure and fertility. Potatoes like rich soil, but not too much nitrogen. Using a nitrogen rich fertilizer or a soil pH of higher than 5.5 can cause scab disease. Scab disease causes corky patches to form on the skin of the potato. It won't hurt you, just peel those portions off before preparing, but is is unattractive. If scab is a problem in your garden:
Planting MethodsThe most common methods for growing potatoes are:
Row Row planting of potatoes are similar to other veggies. Simply dig holes in a row and plant according to the requirements of the specific cultivar. For most potato varieties this means you will plant the sets 4 to 5" deep, every 12" in rows 3 feet apart. I don't know about you, but I don't have this kind of space. I find that most potatoes are fine when grown intensively, meaning planted much closer together. When you are ready to plant, use a tape measure and a stick to scratch a grid of lines onto the surface of your bed. Starting at one end, scratch a line every 18". Then add a line cross-wise every 18". It will look like a large tic-tac-toe board with each box being 18" square. If you need to make 2 rows of 18" squares and then leave space for an access path, and then another 2 rows, that's fine too. Then plant a potato set, or seed potato, 4 to 5" deep in the center of each box in the grid. As the plants emerge, mulch around them. Mulch any paths too.
These can be planted in the grid pattern as discussed above. Make sure to mulch the hills well. Heavy rains can wash them away and inhibit the formation of roots on the buried stems. Later in the season washouts can expose the potatoes to sunlight. Trench Now that your sets are in the trench, cover them with 2 to 3" of soil. As the plant sends up stems, fill the trench in around the plant. Once the trench is fully filled in, add a few inches of mulch. First I start with the 18" grid pattern, with potato sets in holes about 4" deep. After the sprouts have broken the surface, I pull an couple of inches of soil up around them and add a teaspoon of an organic fertilizer designed for root crops and a 3" layer of straw mulch. My favorite fertilizer for my potatoes is
The potatoes grow similarly to the hill method, except that they are growing in the lower layers of the mulch. I find that the yield is a little lower than the hill method, but they are so much easier to harvest. This method also greatly reduces the scab damage. I have seen people grow potatoes using 20+ gallon, plastic garbage pails, large plastic storage tubs, very large pots, buckets or in wire hoops. The garbage pails are probably the least attractive, but the most productive. You can get the ones on wheels to make them mobile. The most common color for garbage pails is black, so the soil would warm up fast, but in the mid and late summer you would probably need to make sure the pails got some shade during the hottest part of the day. Plastic storage tubs may also have handles, but you would most likely need help if wanted to move them. The same goes of large pots and buckets.
Place your potato sets on top of the soil, approximately 6 inches apart and at least 4 inches away from the sides of the container. Then cover the sprouts with about two inches of soil. When the stems have grown to a height of about 8" add a few inches of soil, completely covering the lower leaves of the plants. You may need to experiment with locations to make sure that the plants inside the pot, especially the garbage pail, can get direct sun. You may have to tilt the container, by adding a block of wood under one side. As they continue to grow, add more soil, like the hill method in a pail. When the soil reaches 8 inches from the top of the pot, let the stems grow until the leaves are taller than the sides. Then add straw mulch from the top of the soil to the top of the pot. The straw will break down a compress as the season goes on but unless you can see the potatoes, you do not need to add more.
I have grown potatoes in the same type of wire hoops I use for composting. First, I lined the bottom and first third of the sides with leaves and straw. To that about 5 pounds of coarse builder's sand, to aid with drainage. Then add 2 gallons of soil, seed potatoes and a 3" layer of soil and compost. As the potatoes grow, add straw and or leaf mulch. The potatoes grow the same way they do with the mulch method. When harvest time arrives, either root around in the straw to get a few new potatoes for dinner, or lift the hoop up and separate the potatoes from the mulch. The pile of soil, sand and old mulch left behind can be shoveled into a compost pile or raised garden bed. Potatoes in our Garden
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