I always plant my potatoes in late winter (usually February in my region), in 6" long trenches, covered under 6-12" of a mixture of straw, leaves, and some mature compost.

I also rub powdered sulfur on each potato at planting time, in order to eliminate rotting, and for disease control.

yes you can plant a second crop depending on your local weather conditions you will have to use an early potato which produce a lot of small quick growing potatoes main crop grow fewer bigger potatoes in a z5 climate i would plant them as soom as you have space and consider protecting later in the season

You can lose the entire crop if you plant potatoes too soon. I expect to receive my Fedco order in the next week or two and will put them right in the ground. But my community garden soil is a well drained, loamy sand on a topographic high point, so has already warmed up. If your soil is finer or isn't as well drained as mine, conditions right now are better for potato diseases than for potato plants. You have plenty of time in the Zone 5 Hudson Valley to let the soil warm up.

Early varieties mature more quickly, but don't seem to grow any faster at the beginning of the season than late potatoes. Not that I've noticed, anyway. Since you can begin stealing new potatoes from the plants in mid summer, there's little reason to grow early varieties. If you choose a variety that stores well, it can supply you from summer until winter.

I've never used the straw method, but am pretty sure people set the potatoes on the ground and then cover them.

i called the farm i ordered the potatoes from. (i always feel torn between ronniger's and fedco, so i order a few from each.) ronniger's told me the only difference between early and later varieties, as you said, is the time it takes them to mature. it has nothing , apparently, to do with some preferring cooler or warmer weather. so i'll plant the later varieties soon in the potato patch, and when the spinach is coming to an end i'll plant the faster growing (early) potatoes in there.

last year i planted the potatoes in a few inches of soil, then did the hilling with straw instead of soil. it worked out fine, but i still had to dig the tubers out of the ground. i expected them to be lying in the straw, and they weren't. that's why i wondered if maybe i should actually plant them IN the straw. maybe i'll try a few this year and see how that works.

egganddart: You can plant potatoes at any time of year--counting to their days of maturity for when you want to HARVEST them. The reason they're generally planted early on--we do it on St. Patrick's Day in my zone 7--is that it's known that the tubers form better in the cool nights of early Spring. Nevertheless, I know old farmers in my area who plant an early crop, a mid-season crop, and a late crop. They store the late crop over winter. My relatives--all farmers--did the same--stored them over Winter in bushel baskets in our "brick room" (a cool, unheated room below ground level), and used them all Winter long. They kept best in our brick room at 40-50 degrees--rarely had a problem with any rotting. Also kept bushel baskets of onions and sweet potatoes at the same temperature (and in the same room). An old farmer here told me he's planted them deep, in the Fall before the ground froze, to come up in Spring--to each his own. I'm sure you're aware that if you happen to miss some in the late Summer or early Fall, while harvesting them, they WILL come up in Spring (if vermin haven't eaten them, or something hasn't caused them to rot).
Of course, potatoes are one vegetable that requires acid soil--you can do a search, but I think the recommended pH is about 4.5 to 5.5. Besides the sulphur (mentioned above) warding off disease, sulphur also acidifies the soil (lime raises pH, sulphur lowers it). Plant them in your most acid soil.

Whole potatoes are pretty safe in cold, wet soil. But if you cut seed potatoes before planting, even if you let the wound heal a bit, you want the soil warm and dry enough for the potatoes to start growing quickly.

Oh, yeah--the straw: Planting a lot of rows (on the farm), we use a "hiller" attachment, which hills up soil on both sides: then, we drop potatoes in the "valleys", and cover them with straw, deep enough to be even with the hills. In the garden, planting only a row or two, I'd do about the same: loosen the soil good (till, spade, etc.), and make a raised bed with the loose soil. Make a low valley in the center of it, the length of the row, drop the potatoes in there (one every 18", or so), and cover with straw. Either way, there shouldn't be any digging.

bruce: My intent cetainly was not to walk on your post--as I agree with it. When I said potatoes could be planted at any time, I meant anytime after the soil is "in order". I didn't mean planting them in cold, wet soil, or mud or snow, etc. And I also didn't mean planting them in September and hoping for a harvest in December. When I was a young child, I was avidly interested in gardening, and I used to ask my father why we couldn't plant the garden yet (in warm weather in March, for example). My father told me we had to wait for the soil to be "in order". I couldn't understand what that meant (at 4 years old), and there are many who still don't understand what is meant by that old gardeners' expression. But it means about what Bruce stated above. If you get to digging around in wet soil--cold or not--you'll cause clumps and clods that pretty much last the whole growing season, and make gardening a useless endeavor. And if you get to digging around in cold, wet soil, you'll exacerbate the disease problems that Bruce mentions, above. "In order" mostly means loose, and friable, and dry enough not to clump--it's an expression that becomes more clear to the gardener through time (and trial and error).

marylandmojo,

really, no digging? mine were still underground. maybe the difference is that i planted mine in the soil (by a few inches) and then put straw on top as they developed. you're saying, i think, that you place the potato on the soil then cover with straw? if so, i'll try that.

also, i get decent yields, but not great. i've assumed that's because i'm not planting high yielding varieties. could it be the soil isn't acid enough? (i haven't tested it in years.) i usually put peat moss in the potato area. think that's acidic enough? i don't know anything about using sulphur.

Really--no digging. That's the whole purpose of doing it as mentioned--not in the soil, on the soil and covered with straw. You see them growing out of the potato bag under the sink, don't you? They don't need to be IN soil. Of course, most anyone that knows about growing potatoes would advise you to get a soil test. Certainly you'd get the best yields planting them in soils suited to their pH requirements. Your average soil where you're located is probably 6 to 6.5 (a really wild guess, but similar to others in the Northeast, that I'm aware of)--so 4.5 to 5.5 is WAY acid, of that. In the West, a lot of Sulphur is used because their soils are alkaline--generally around 8, and they want to get them down to 7 (neutral, on a scale of 0-14), of normal crop requirements. To grow potaotes there requires MORE sulphur input. I'm certainly not going to advise you to use inputs (sulphur) without knowing your soil pH--that would be irresponsible. So, it's up to you from here.

maryland-- do you get mice / voles eating the potatoes under the straw? it's high time i do test my soil. every year i think about it, but in general my crops are so good i just figure there's not much to gain. i am curious, tho, and think i will this year.