The More You Grow: Potatoes

One of the very FIRST things you can safely plant in your garden is potatoes! Planted in late winter (early-mid March), they will produce a crop that is ready for harvest as early as the first week of June for smaller new potatoes, and as late as the end of June for larger potatoes when the summer temperatures rise. We usually choose red and Yukon gold potatoes for our area! Traditionally, most people in our area in Kansas plant their potatoes around St. Patrick's Day, but it really depends on how your weather is each year. If it's too cold and damp, we found the potatoes don't grow very well.

Seed potatoes are not really seeds at all, but tubers that are used for planting! These tubers are the edible parts of a potato that are stored over the winter in certain conditions to protect them from getting soft and free of disease.

We recommend buying potato seeds from your local farm store or greenhouse, as the potatoes you'd buy in a grocery store have likely been treated with sprout-inhibitors that prevent the eyes of the potatoes from developing while they're being stored. However, it's not impossible for them to produce! We have tried planting russet potatoes from the store that grew a few eyes, but the potatoes they produced were very small compared to the ones you'd get in the store. Planting and harvesting your own potatoes takes minimal effort for a large crop. Potatoes also have many health benefits, like being packed with fiber, potassium, and vitamins C and B6! Source

How many seed potatoes do you need?

Determine how large of a space you're wanting to allow for potatoes to grow. You'll plant them in rows of hills that are about 2ft apart. Keep in mind, each eye on the seed potato will produce one hill of potatoes, so you don't need many to have quite the harvest!

How do you plant seed potatoes?

Take your potatoes and cut them, making sure each piece you cut has at least one eye on it. If there are no eyes on the potato, there's a very good chance that it will not sprout or produce anything. Next, lay each piece on a cookie sheet or piece of cardboard and let the potato seeds sit for a couple of days in a dark, dry spot. This helps to harden the cut side of the potato, preventing them from rotting with disease in cold, wet soil. Once they're dry, it's time to plant in freshly tilled soil! Be sure to mark where you're placing the rows of potatoes with a stake or flag at the edge of your garden. Dig holes with a garden hoe in a row about 2 feet apart and about 3 inches deep, placing one seed in each with the "eyes to the sky." Making sure the eyes are pointed up helps the potato plant stems reach the soil surface faster. The stems will still grow if they get turned upside down, but it will just take a bit longer for them to find the surface. After each hole has a seed potato in it, take the hoe and cover each.

How do you maintain potato plants?

When the potato plants are about 6-8" tall, you'll want to gently mound dirt around the stems of the plant, and they should be "hilled" in another 2 weeks or so as needed from there. This helps keep the potato covered and will increase the length of the stems underground that will eventually produce potatoes, while also keeping weeds around each plant at bay!

When do you know your potatoes are ready?

This depends on the size of potatoes you're looking for. If you want new potatoes, such as the ones we dug and used in our Peas and Potatoes recipe, those are ready to pull when you see blooms on the plants, around the first of June! But for a bigger harvest with larger potatoes, you'll want to wait until the foliage begins to die off.

Where do potatoes need to be stored?

Potatoes are best stored in cool, dry, and well-ventilated places out of direct sunlight. We have always kept ours in a safe room/tornado shelter.

How long do potatoes keep?

Depending on where you've got them stored, they should keep for at least 3-4 months before beginning to shrivel up or sprout. Some may even last up to 8 months if kept in the right environment!