Potatoes are easy. Take advantage of a gardener's choice and look for other varieties you won't find in stores. There are well over 400 varieties of potatoes to choose from.

Delicious when freshly harvested because they have a crispness not found from grocery store potatoes. The key is to plant them at the proper time in your area in high quality soil. The same soil you would want for your entire vegetable garden. Rich in organic matter, with plenty of drainage.

Plant the potatoes in a trench below soil level, then as they grow, you keep adding more soil until you are hilling them.

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Hilling improves drainage, minimizes tuber greening, minimizes frost damage, aids in weed control and facilitates harvesting. If you did not hill, the potatoes forming near the surface would turn green and the stolons near the surface which form the tubers may turn into foilage instead of tubers.

Hilling doesn't have so much to do with the stem as much as the tubers themselves. Hilling won't necessarily encourage potatoes to form all along the stem the higher you go. The goal of hilling is to provide a protected enough environment in order for the actual potatoes/tubers to form without turning green and developing solanine, a bitter and toxic (in significant quantities).

What results in a higher yield is not so much potatoes along the length of the stem as much as proper growing medium with plenty of water retention as well as with plenty of drainage. Many gardeners hill, but their yield isn't optimum because their growing medium isn't optimum to begin with. If your growing medium is optimum you'll get a higher yield from plants that aren't hilled much vs plants that are hilled to 8 feet in poor growing medium.

Irish Eyes: Garden City Seeds, Wood Prairie Farm, and Ronniger Potato Farm are good places to choose seed potatoes from.

Here is a link that might be useful: How to Grow Potatoes

Absolutely.

Potatoes are my favorite crop from the garden. Could be my Irish blood.

You'll cut the seed potatoes into 2 or 3 pieces, making sure to have an equal number of eyes on each piece. This may take some strange shapes as a lot of the eyes will congregate on one end. The best luck I've had is 30 inch rows as that gives you adequate space from which to pull the dirt for the hilling process. The pieces should be placed one foot apart in a trench about 6 inches deep.

Your plot will grow 2 rows 5 feet long if you squeeze them down to 24 inches apart. Figure on an average harvest of one pound per foot(I always get more) for a yield of 10 pounds out of your 3X5 plot. You might consider giving more space to them. My plot is 8 16 foot rows - about 130 lbs. Way more than a family of three can eat but I like giving them away to friends and co-workers anyway.

They keep pretty well if you have a cold, dark spot in your basement. I actually have a root celler in my basement, a MAJOR selling point when my wife and I looked at the house.

The three standbys for me are Red Norland, Yukon Gold and Gold Rush. there are a huge variety of potatoes out there, though. I'm sure I'll be trying more and possibly better varieties as the years pass but this is my sixth season and the third at this house.

You can't really grow anything on top of them because they have a large amount of foliage. The foliage is poisonous so have few animal pests. Colorado potato Beetle will be an enemy but I've only ever seen one in my garden and I killed him FAST!

Good luck! Once you get garden taters, you'll never like store taters as much again.

Definitely yes.

As illustrated in violet's first photo, it's not necessary to cut the seed tubers. That's something for growing in big quantity when it's wanted to maximize the return on the seed-stock. For your little bed that isn't an issue and there's no chance of rotting if you use whole seed.

My particular favorite is a fingerling called rose finn apple.

SarahLynn

I love trying unusual ways to grow plants, since I'm gradually expanding my garden space but hate "soil preparation". Raised beds are certainly good, and I'm planning to use an individual raised bed for each potato plant next year.

I collect 5-gallon buckets from any source that gives them away and have used them to grow many things, including making self-watering containers out of doubles for tomatoes and melons (they were great).

I also cut the bottoms out of some of these buckets to place on the bare soil since I didn't have the time or materials to make any more raised beds this year. This year I've grown squash and millet in them.

To get to the point! I plan to use these 5-gallon open-bottomed containers next year to grow potatoes. I'll place buckets with the bottoms cut out on soil that's been composted and plant one potato tuber / eye per bucket in that composted soil for the roots to grow in. For hilling, I'll just add growing soil to the buckets as the plants grow, and probably just shredded leaves when the bucket is half-full.

There are lots of ways you can grow potatoes, and I guess the only thing I'd warn about is that many plants don't like growing where potatoes have grown the year before, and potatoes themselves don't like to grow in the same spot year after year. Many people rotate their plants from year to year to accommodate these requirements.

Sites on companion planting almost all list plants that don't grow well together or in the same soil. Below is one of them.

You'll get lots of good advice about potato planting here! Good luck with your new potato venture!

Here is a link that might be useful: Companion Planting and Plant Dislikes

I grew potatoes for the first time this year. I planted one row of Red Pontiac and one row of Gold Rush. About 60% of the Red Pontiac came up but only about 40% of the Gold Rush. My neighbor had a similar problem, so we are thinking the soil hadn't warmed enough in our area for the usual planting date. I have nice lavender blossoms on the Red Pontiac now, but I don't want to dig around to see if any baby potatoes are there for fear of disturbing things. I have good memories of digging potatoes as a child so I am really looking forward to it.

I also want to try fingerling potatoes next year, so you and I are on the same track.

So once you grow potatoes in a bed, what do you do with it the year after? Sow a cover crop? Let it lie fallow? My former potato bed is where I'm trying to grow canteloupe this year.

This is my second year growing potatoes. The number of varieties available is amazing, and there's nothing like the taste of a home-grown potato.

I put three potatoes into a potato bag (Gardener's Supply). I filled it half way with dirt, planted the potatoes, and as they grow I add more dirt. I'm doing the same thing with my 3x3 raised bed, where I planted nine potatoes. All but one came up. As they grow, I'll just add soil.

Although I haven't ordered from them yet, Milk Ranch has a wide variety of potatoes. The ones I'm growing this year came from Gardener's Supply.

what do you do with it the year after? Sow a cover crop? Let it lie fallow?

I always rotate and change things up to keep the soil healthy and prevent disease. I never have anything "set" as for what comes after what so long as it isn't in the same family I plant something different and always use up my space.

would it be possible to plant these outside my main garden in a unprotected bed... do rabbits, deer, skunks, raccoons dig them up?

Since potatoes are in the nightshade family, they are poisonous to most animals, but there are pests like the Colorado Potato Beetle which may or may not cause problems just as every vegetable has potential pests.

since these grow underground can i plant somthing else on top of them?

You could but since you'll want to keep adding soil by hilling and then you'll be wanting to possible "steal" some early potatoes and then dig up to harvest, it's not practical to plant anything where they grow until you harvest all the potatoes.

Check with your state's Extension Service. Each county should have it's own Cooperative Extension Office which provides free publications and information for the asking. They will have valuable vegetable/gardening tables available specifically for your area determined by universities and horticultural research scientists who have collected data from growing those crops in your state. Your tax dollars are already paying for this service so you may as well get some use out of it.

Vegetable Planting and Planning Calendar for Missouri (download the pdf) complete with spring and fall planting dates (underneath the spring planting dates for appropriate crops), how much to plant per person, etc. They can also tell you the average last frost date for your area and ideal planting times for specific crops and varieties in your area.

See how detailed this example is:

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We grew Yukon Gold for the first time this year, palnted 25 lbs and just harvested 280 lbs! They were palnted in four 30 ft rows. They are yummy! Easy and very rewarding.

Susan in NC

"...since we are into july, i am already beginning to plan my garden for next year."...LOL...Me too.

If the idea appeals to you, definitely grow potatoes.

Potatoes are no more difficult to grow than other veggies and not much easier. They have pests (Colorado potato beetle) and diseases (early blight, late blight). But they are the last choice of most four legged critters. Those buggers will eat everthing else in the garden before chomping down on your potatoes, so that's good.

All potatoes are equally easy (or difficult) to grow, so far as I know. So grow the ones which appeal to you. There are a huge number of varieties beyond what you see in stores. But some of the common ones are the best.

As others have said, the eating qualities of a home grown potato are soooo good. And that's what home gardening is all about, IMO. Red Pontiacs are a wonderful early potato, great for summertime eating, boiled or in potato salad. The little golf ball sized potatoes, simply boiled, buttered and salted are a treat.

The amount of space you have will not grow a year's supply. But you didn't expect that, did you?

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: Ronniger's Potato Farm

WOW what a great response!! thanks!! now let me make sure i am getting all this right... you dig a ditch and place the potato in it... do you dig the ditch so that you have room to keep adding soil? how do you add the soil, as the foliage grows do you keep covering it up? i do not really understand that part. and lastly, when you plant the potato seed there should only be one eye per seed, right? i have read that if there are more eyes to just gently wipe them off. how am i doing so far? i think i may create a bed outside the garden, the beetles will find them anywhere i put them, it is the larger pests i am glad i won't have to worry about. how deep do i need the trench? sarah

Make the trench 6 inches deep. As the potatoes grow pull soil back into the trench and mound about 6 to 8 inches high[in about 3 different times...2 or 3 inches at a time.] and then cease hilling. You do not have to dig all your potatoes as soon as the plant dies. Dig as you use as the ground is a near perfect storage place until freezing weather.

What I've heard is that you should have 2-3 eyes per piece that you plant. I've never heard of getting rid of a potato eye. If the potatoes are small, like about golf ball size, I plant the whole potato. If they're larger, I cut them up, 2 to 3 eyes per piece. I've heard that you should let the cut portions dry before you put them in the ground, but last year I was a complete newbie and didn't know that, so I planted them immediately. They grew fine. It didn't seem to bother them.

I've never heard of nor noticed any allelopathic affect from potatoes.

Many good posts on the benefit of growing your own potatoes. One thing we like to do is sneak a few small potatoes by digging in the side of the hill with our hands when the peas are ready for new potatoes and creamed peas. This does not bother the rest of the potatoes in the hill as they will continue to grow to maturity.

I dont know if I missed it? When is the best time to plant potatoes? I have always done it very early in the season.

I plant only yukon gold. I buy powdered sulfur to coat the peices after I cut them. I plant them in the same place every year with no problem. At the edge of my raised bed, I will plant green onions and raddish which come on early. In the central part of the US, most are planted on Good Friday.

Plant as early in spring as the ground is workable. Fedco (Moose tubers) has a great assortment of seed potatoes - you'll want to grow them all. Fingerlings, colored kinds, bakers, mashers...
Potatoes are a great crop for weedy soil because you can plant and mulch and then in late summr or early fall you dig over the whole plot to harvest so the soil gets throughly worked over and it cleans things up for other crops the following year.

The home grown potatoes will taste better than anything at the store. We like Kennebec a little earlier than Yukon gold but you could plant both since Yukon gold are earlier than Kennebec. I just found out this year that there is time in Ohio to grow some early potatoes, pull them and plant a second crop if you use Yukon Gold.
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Interesting what you say about 2 crops in the same year, Ohio_grower.

I've grown potatoes some years and not other. More on than off and intend to stay on. They are inexpensive and yet the plants attract the potato bugs and need that kind of attention. And, yes indeed, they appreciate water while they are growing. Growing them as a dry land crop requires that you have good timing or luck with rain.

Your link doesn't have anything to do with the 2 crop idea. A specially purchased growing arrangement!?!

Dad decided to grow potatoes in a plastic barrel for a few years. You can cut off both the top and bottom of a plastic barrel and then cut the tube in half. It seems to me, this system would work as well as a raised bed framework. I don't see that there's too much mystery about growing potatoes. The company seems to want to have it both ways - part of the hard work is harvesting and one should grow more pounds of potatoes . . . I just enjoy digging them and use smaller buckets to carry 'em away.

Here's a link that talks a bit about planting in July/August. One thing about a 2 crop season - timing of the dieback with limited irrigation and rainfall. Leaving potatoes in the soil and irrigating will just allow the depletion of the tubers from the Spring crop in building the tubers for the Fall crop. Lots of new gardeners make that mistake because they think that waiting until Fall for harvest is necessary.

Steve

How deep/long are the roots? I'm planning on 5-gallon buckets and wish to know how deep to set the eyes. Half-way?

festus47, I agree 100%. New potatoes with peas or green beans are a great treat that most people don't realize. Or new parsley potatoes with butter.

shilohyn, I am not an expert but I once read where someone was raising potatoes in containers. They put a couple of inches of dirt on the bottom and added their potatoes. Then they covered this with four inches of dirt. When the plant grows a couple of inches above the soil level put more dirt into the container. When they showed how many potatoes grew from the bottom to top it was amazing. Adding a little potato fertilizer each time you do this wouldn't hurt either. When I say dirt I mean rich soil with leaves/compost in it.

I haven't dug them yet, but this year I grew potatoes in a potato bag, found through Gardener's Supply. Hilling them just consists of adding more soil/compost to the bag.

It says that you can reuse the bag a second year. If it's intact, I see no reason why you couldn't keep using it, but perhaps they mean that you should change out the dirt after that.

Here is a link that might be useful: Gardener's potato bag

Is is possible to order seed potatoes and plant in late June for a fall harvest?