"Planting potatoes
and looking after them!"

Unfortunately, planting potatoes isn't just a question of scattering the seed and letting nature take it's course... oh If only :-)

Preparation and choosing seed potatoes:

Buy potato seed from a reputable supplier. There are a few garden suppliers online who will deliver potato seed to your door.

MaxinePicasso

Planting potatoes in the UK at Thompson & Morgan
This section is entirely devoted to potatoes.

Butterball Red La Soda

Planting potatoes with Gurney's (US)

Planting potatoes should be no bigger than an egg when you buy them.

Before planting, potatoes need to 'sprout'. Spread them out in a shallow cardboard box, or similar container, and leave in a dry and airy place for a couple of weeks. Avoid direct sunlight.

After a couple of weeks, there should be a few sprouts on each seed. They are ready to plant.

Many gardeners will tell you that potatoes help break up the soil, and should be the first crop on a previously unworked piece of land. And it does work. We filled our new plot with potato seed and the following year the soil was much easier to work.The downside? A smaller harvest. While we did have lots of delicious potatoes, subsequent years have proved that the harvest tends to be greater if the soil is prepared before planting potatoes.

Our best ever harvest was a result of good preparation, and a little luck with the weather...We dug, trenched and laid comfrey leaves in the bottom of the trench. Then we scattered a little earth back on top of the comfrey and placed our potatoes on top. The comfrey acts as a tonic to the soil and helps the roots of your plants take up nutrients. This method resulted in a wonderful crop of potatoes.

Dig your ground and create a trench about 6-8 inches (15-20cm) deep. Place your potato seed carefully along the line, about 12 inches (30cm) apart.

Cover seed carefully by hand and rake gently over the whole area when trenches are filled.

Water if weather is dry and wait patiently for a couple of weeks. Keep an eye on your patch and remove any weeds as they appear - and they will!

After 2-3 weeks, you will see small bushy looking plants popping up in the row.

When the plants are around 4 - 8 inches (10-20cm) high, gently pull the soil up and over the plants leaving an inch or two (couple of centimetres) showing. Use a rake, dutch hoe or similar tool. The trench should now be raised it's whole length by about 6-8 inches (15-20cm).

NB: Please don't take these 'inch' or 'cm' measurements too literally. You will feel what is right for your plot as you work it.

After a few more weeks, the whole 'earthing up' process needs to be repeated. The reason for this is that the potatoes will grow inside the mound you have created. If potatoes aren't covered properly when growing, they go green and become inedible.

By now, you should have a fair sized mound and the plants will be growing well. Water every day if weather is very dry and keep weed free.

'Earth up' your plants once more about 2-3 weeks later. Then leave them alone.

Now spring should be dissolving into summer and you won't want to be doing too much heavy work in the garden.

As the weather becomes drier, remember to water your potato plot well. Potatoes need a lot of water to fully develop.

Growing potatoes in the traditional way is labour intensive, and over the years new methods have been tried and tested to grow healthy crops of potatoes.

Raised beds- Creating narrow strips of land to grow your crops is becoming more and more popular. The theory is that you dig less, and also, because you don't ever walk onto your plot, the soil will not be compacted and lose it's natural structure.

Make your beds about 3ft or a metre wide, so that you can comfortably reach to the middle of the bed from either side. Once dug, you mustn't step onto the prepared soil.

Use a fence post or any 'hole-making' implement and make holes for your potatoes along the bed. Give each seed about 12ins (30cm) all around. Plant in a couple of rows, staggered to keep the spacing tight.

Place seed in holes and cover.

Planting potatoes in this way means you will not need to 'earth up' as they grow. However, when we tried this method, we found that the plants were much more vulnerable to wind, as they tended to grow more straggly then bushy. The crop was good though!

Fill a tyre with prepared soil. ( any well rotted compost or soil from another part of your garden will do, as long as it is broken up well and all weeds removed. )

Place a few early variety potatoes into the tyre -around 3-6 depending on the size of your tyre. If the weather is cold, place a small sheet of clear plastic over the tyre and tuck in to keep the plants cozy during the cold nights. Remove during the day for light and air.

Planting potatoes - problems:

Potatoes are subject to a number of diseases, the most prevalent of which is 'blight'. If you find this disease on your plants, cut down the foliage and burn. The potatoes will continue to grow for a few more weeks.

However, when you do get a serious blight attack, there is little you can do, except cry perhaps.:-) Planting potatoes isn't always a bunch of roses!

There are ways of preventing the virus attacking. Many gardeners swear by 'bordeaux mixture'. The liquid is sprayed onto the foliage of the potato plants a number of times during the growing period.

Muggy weather encourages the blight virus so keep a careful eye on your crop during warm and damp weather conditions.

Planting potatoes - the harvest:

As soon as a potato plant has flowers, the tiny potatoes under the soil start swelling. If you gently push away the soil from the bottom of a plant, you can pick a few early new potatoes. Go on you deserve it! NB: Make sure you push the soil back over the potatoes still in the ground to protect them from the light.

When the foliage has completely died back, your potato crop is ready to harvest.

Use a fork or spade and dig up your plants from the outside of the mound. Don't dig straight through the middle, as you'll probably damage some of your valuable crop!

Lay the potatoes out to dry in the sun for a few hours, turning occassionally. Don't leave too long as sunlight will turn your potatoes green, and make them inedible.

Planting potatoes - Storing:

There are a variety of styles of potato storage systems on the market. Or make your own! Collect cardboard fruit cartons - you're looking for shallow, with air holes and stackable boxes.

Place your potatoes in single layers in the boxes and store in a cool, dry and dark place. They should keep perfectly for a few months.

Remember that potatoes have a high water content and are very vulnerable to frosts. A frost will rot a whole crop of potatoes overnight in a cold barn or shed. Keep an eye on the temperature, and bring the potatoes in if you need to.

Enjoy!

Potatoes are probably one of the most versatile foods we can grow in our gardens. With a hungry family to feed, you can provide a different meal every day of the week!Get the kids into planting potatoes for their favourite meals later in the year.

Make the most of your organic spuds and create some fantastic recipes - start from this page: Potato Recipes

Happy Gardening!

Grow Your Own Winter Food: A good diet incorporating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables is a must if you want to stay fit and healthy and keep the bugs at bay during the cold winter months.

Growing your own winter food is just one way of ensuring you get the freshest, tastiest produce packed with goodness straight from the garden to the kitchen table. This easy-to-follow self-sufficiency book shows you how to grow your own fruit and vegetables for winter use and includes facts on each fruit, vegetable or herb as well as nutritional value, recipe ideas and storage suggestions. ("There's more about planting potatoes in this wonderful book!")

Before the days of computer games and electronic pets, children used to have fun without rummaging about in the fridge every five minutes. Enjoy a few rainy-day games and crafts of yesteryear with today’s kids. They’ll love it and so will you! Granny's Book Of Good Old Fashioned Common Sense

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