How to Grow Potatoes
Everyone should learn how to grow potatoes. Not only are potatoes a nutritious staple for any diet, they are the one vegetable where you really will feel like you are getting the most from your planting efforts.
Potatoes like a lot of sun. They also like a lot of space and moist but well-drained soil. If you don’t have much space you can still learn how to grow potatoes in mounds. Plant your potatoes in the early spring but wait until the temperature in the soil is around 45 degrees. It’s best to cover them with a mulch such as straw. It’s not good for potatoes to be in the ground if you expect more heavy frosts.
If you want to know how to grow potatoes that produce well, make sure you start out by getting certified seed potatoes. They have them at all garden and feed stores in the springtime. If you think, “why don’t I just save some money by using some old leftover potatoes?,” chances are will get a few potatoes, but you will not get a beautiful, abundant, or disease-free crop.
The kind of potatoes you grow depends on the length of your growing season, and whether or not you want to have your plant production spread out over several weeks. There are many kinds of early, mid-season, and late potatoes. Early potatoes might be ready or at least giving you small potatoes by the first week in September while some late potatoes won’t be full grown till mid-to-late October. Early varieties include Yukon Gold or White Rose; mid-season include Superior and Russet; and late varieties are Kennebec, Red Pontiac and Russet Norkotah.
A couple days before planting your seed potatoes, take them out of the bag and get them ready to plant. Leave the small potatoes whole but any medium to large potatoes cut with a knife into chunks with one or two eyes (sprouts) on each piece. This way the potato chunks will get a rough, scabby layer over the outside and this will protect it from rotting out before it can grow.
Plant your potatoes by digging a trench approximately ten inches deep. Mix some manure or other fertilizer into the soil on the bottom. Cover the layer with dirt. Plant your small potatoes and chunks about 15 inches a part, scab side down. Your rows should be around 2 feet apart. Cover the seed potatoes with dirt. You should start seeing growth above ground in two weeks. Make sure throughout the season that your potatoes are well-covered with soil. If the growing potatoes get exposed to open air they will develop green spots which can be toxic.
If you don’t have enough room to dig trenches, plant your potatoes in mounds. Cultivate the soil so the roots have room to grow. Make a 3-4 foot circle and place the potato pieces scab down, about 6-8 in a circle. Cover with 4-5 inches of dirt. Make sure your potatoes get plenty of water when the tops are flowering. Two to three weeks after the tops have stopped flowering, you will have potatoes.
Kids love to help harvest potatoes because it’s just like being told you can play in the dirt. And, the search for potatoes in the dirt is like a scavenger hunt. Small children especially are delighted when they have unearthed one. Dinner with the first new potatoes is something to look forward to that evening.