UNTIL I STARTED growing them, I didn’t know the world of potatoes was anything more than simply baking, red, or new. For those who grow their own, there can be spuds in a range of colors from blue to white to red and yellow. They come small as your thumb (fingerlings such as ‘Austrian Crescent’ are great for potato salad like this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, or for roasting). Others are as large as a pound-and-a-half meal (‘Nooksack’, a whopping russet-skinned type that could support a whole container of sour cream). Best: You can harvest baby potatoes and eat them minutes later, which is one of vegetable gardening’s greatest rewards, right up there with the first ripe tomato.
Choose not just for size and color but also for texture, since potatoes may be mealy or smooth. It likewise makes sense to stagger the harvest by selecting some early varieties (65-plus days to harvest), midseason (85-plus days), and late (90-plus). Potatoes go into the ground early, but according to conservatives that means a week or two before the final frost, like late May for me. In cooperative years, when the soil is workable and no longer sodden and cold, I jump the gun and get them in at the end of April. They won’t start growing until the soil reaches 45 degrees; they will rot if it’s cold and wet. Under ideal conditions, potatoes will yield about 14 pounds per pound of seed potatoes planted; I haven’t achieved those results, but I keep trying.
They do best in a light, loose and slightly acid soil that is kept weed-free while they grow. Plant in 6-inch-wide, 6-inch-deep trenches, leaving about a foot to a foot and a half in the row between each seed potato (a smallish potato, or a wedge of a larger potato that was cut to include some eyes, then allowed to cure a few days in the air before planting). As the foliage emerges and gets near a foot tall, I hill the plants up with extra soil.
Here’s where the work comes in. Where does the needed soil come from? Since my soil is not rocky or too heavy, I sometimes dig a deeper trench to start with, leaving the loose excavated soil along each side of the trench. At hilling time, I just move it back onto the row of plants, never covering the foliage completely, but simply most of the way. When the plants grow up a bit again, I mulch them with a thick layer of oat straw.
An even easier method is to merely lay the seed potatoes on top of soil in a row, a foot apart, then heap 6 to 8 inches of straw or hay mulch on top of them. Each time the shoots of the potato plants emerge, top-dress with more mulch; water regularly. Back-saving gardeners who use this method rave about the simplicity, and also about the clean potatoes they harvest, which were never underground. Potatoes are so eager to grow (as anyone who has kept a bag of them too long in the kitchen will confirm) that they can even be grown in a compost heap or a bin (as long as it has slits or holes for water and air).
Order from a specialist like Ronniger’s, who have an unmatched collection and lots more tips to help you succeed. Whichever method you choose, do not give them lots of nitrogen (you’ll get leaves, not tubers) or any lime, and be generous with the watering and sunshine. Never plant potatoes in the same place within three years of the last potato crop; they must be rotated.
New potatoes (dig just what you’ll use each day) can be harvested carefully starting about two to three weeks after flowering of the plants stop. Or let them keep growing. I leave my potatoes in the ground and use them from there as needed well into the fall, then dig the rest carefully, working slowly so as not to pierce the tubers, and let them cure a bit in the last sunny days on the picnic table before putting them in bushel baskets in a spot where it is cool and dark, but not near freezing. A sampling of the best potatoes of each variety (no, not the runts) can be carried over for next year’s starts, so long as they are still firm and vital when the time comes to plant again.
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Hi Margaret,
If you have a chance to answer, I am wondering about something — I planted a potato (got it as a seed potato from the nursery) in a big pot on Sunday, and put 4″ of soil/compost mix on top of it like the handout that came with it said to do. It’s pretty deep in the pot, which isn’t gigantic — but do you think I can put hay on top of it now as the shoots appear? And do you know when I get to stop “hilling” it and just let it grow (when I get to the top of the pot, obviously — but I think there are only about six inches left)? I don’t even know what a growing potato looks like and I can’t seem to figure this out from the books I have that mention growing potatoes. Perhaps my pot is not big enough. I think the potatoes are red fingerlings. Thanks Margaret, and no worries if you don’t have time to answer all this!
@ Alicia: Dare I tell you they can get to 3 feet tall? I think I probably end up hilling/burying them in stages with a total of maybe 12 or 18 inches of “stuff” (soil, mulch, etc.) on them before just letting them grow (meaning probably 2 feet is above ground). They look *somewhat* like a tomato plant but more multi-stemmed, and with purplish instead of yellow flowers. Mostly the containers that they are grown in are more like garbage-can size, or whiskey barrel, but that’s assuming you put a lot more than a single seed potato in.
Hi – I grew potatoes last year for the first time. I was surprised when they tasted completely and deliciously different than store-bought. For organic seed potatoes, I love a Maine company called Wood Prairie Farms. . I’m also going to try growing mine in these cool fabric containers called Smart Pots. I think they make really good sense – especially for potatoes.
3 feet! Okay, the handout did not say that! :-) A three foot plant in the pot I’ve got is going to be hilarious. Thank you so much for the info, seriously — I will hill until I can hill no more, and report back. Next year, must get a Smart Pot. Or a(nother) garbage can.
Margaret, I have been having the best time with my little 8′x8′ veggie garden so far. Thank you so much for the inspiration. xo
Hi, Alicia, and I hope the 8×8 will be the start of many great adventures (er, addictions). But watch out: Soon you will have to start attending meetings. It all starts small, and then it takes over your life…but don’t be embarrassed, you will be among friends.
Hi Margaret
I have the worst luck with potatoes. Last year was my first year, and I decided to plant them in tires- all was working great till around July and then all of a sudden all the leaves disappeared.It must have been a bug- I got nothing in return. This year I bought these felt buckets from Gardeners Supply for the taters and covered them with straw- I got them at Ronnigers like you suggested. I planted them about 3 1/2 weeks ago but I have seen no growth. What am I doing wrong?? I live in the metro NY area- Northern Westchester- near Martha..Any suggestions?? Thanks
I have always let the flowers alone on potatos but I have heard that they will grow bigger and more of them if you cut off the flowers. Is this true?
Welcome, Vicki. I have never seen that suggested in any of the instructions from potato sources I get my tubers from, and though it makes sense, it also seems impractical…especially if you grow long rows of potatoes. Fascinating…now you have me curious, but as I say, I have not seen deadheading recommended by any of the big growers I get things from. Hope to see you again here soon.