Potatoes in the Garden (2024)

FAQs

What month do you plant potatoes? ›

When to Plant Potatoes. Potatoes grow best during cooler weather. Plant potatoes 2-4 weeks before the last frost in the spring, when the soil temperature is at least 40 degrees F. In warm climates, potatoes are planted from January to March and harvested between March and June.

Generally, new potatoes will be present by day 60; they will be small and fragile. You can take a few if you just can't wait any longer!! Most varieties will have good-sized tubers that are ready to harvest by 90 days.

Let the potato plants and the weather tell you when to harvest them. Wait until the tops of the vines have completely died before you begin harvesting. When the vines are dead, it is a sure sign the potatoes have finished growing and are ready to be harvested.

So it should come as no surprise that it's just as easy to skip the produce section and start growing potatoes in your own yard. All you need is a sunny space to grow them, a steady supply of water, and seed potatoes (the sprouted portion of a potato that you plant in the ground).

Potatoes always do best in full sun. They are aggressively rooting plants, and we find that they will produce the best crop when planted in a light, loose, well-drained soil. Potatoes prefer a slightly acid soil with a PH of 5.0 to 7.0.

Flowering just means that the vines are mature enough and have enough leaf area to start forming tubers. It doesn't mean the tubers are ready to harvest. Until they reach mature size, your potatoes should be watered regularly though the summer, from 1 to 3 inches of water per week, as needed.

A single plant will produce, at a minimum, three or four pounds of potatoes, and a single seed potato will produce four or five plants.

Full-sized potatoes are usually ready about 120 days from planting. Experienced gardeners sometimes judge the progress of the crop by watching for a distinctive bulging of the soil around the stem of the plant. As the potato tubers grow, the soil is displaced and a soil mound forms.

Most early potato varieties will produce flowers in June, quite pretty ones too. Many are white, but they come in purple and pink too. Once the flowers start to go over, or the unopened flower buds drop, you know that the potatoes are ready to harvest. This will take anywhere from eight to twelve weeks after planting.

When should I stop watering my potato plants? ›

Stop watering your potato plants about 2-3 weeks before harvest, or when you first see the foliage on the plants starting to turn yellow. Make sure to harvest your potatoes on a dry day when the soil is dry—harvesting potatoes when wet or damp can cause the potatoes to rot more easily in storage.

Dig potatoes too early, and you'll harvest a measly crop of minuscule tubers. You'll also risk stressing the plant and its precious root system, so although you could try replanting it, the plant might not thrive. Wait too long, and your potatoes may get damaged by frost, or begin to sprout, crack or rot underground.

Potatoes grown directly into the ground will provide a better yield by weight than those grown in containers.

In most climates where the soil freezes, potatoes grow as an annual. In climates where the soil never freezes, a potato plant could be thought of as a perennial that spreads via the tubers, if they are left in the soil.

To plant seed potatoes in straw, prepare an in-ground garden bed or a raised bed for planting. Then, nestle each piece of seed potato down into the soil by no more than an inch or so. Some gardeners who plant seed potatoes in straw don't even bury them at all; they simply toss the pieces on top of the soil.

Potatoes are members of the nightshade family, so avoid planting potatoes near any other nightshade family members such as peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplant, and okra. And, avoid planting potatoes is the same location where nightshade plants have recently been grown.

The fact is, potatoes do exceptionally well in raised beds, mainly because of the control over the soil content. So, if space isn't an issue for you, then yes, you should be growing potatoes in your raised beds.

Plant seed pieces 10 to 12 inches apart and cover in a furrow between 1 and 3 inches deep. Space rows 24 to 36 inches apart. The 24 inch spacing is often beneficial because the plants shade the soil and prevent high soil temperatures that inhibit tuber development.

Vegetables as potato companion plants

Among the good potato companion plants are crops in the cabbage family. Growing broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and kale, which all have shallow root systems, means they won't compete for the space or nutrients that deep-rooted potatoes will need.

Avoid planting potatoes near asparagus, Brassicas, carrots, cucumber, kohlrabi, melons, parsnips, rutabaga, squash, sunflower, and turnips. Radish – Plant radishes near beans, beets, celeriac, chervil, cucumber, lettuce, mint, parsnip, peas, spinach, squash, and tomatoes.

What do you plant in plot after potatoes? ›

When nutrients are replenished with a balanced organic fertiliser, a potato plot often makes a great place to grow cabbage family crops for fall like cabbage, collards or kale. Leeks or scallions are excellent choices, too, though you will need to start seeds now in order to have the seedlings you need in midsummer.

You should allow your potatoes to flower. By harvesting after they flower, you allow the potato plant to grow to its potential. However, not all potatoes will flower or produce fruit. Whether your potatoes flower or not, the best time to harvest them is after above-ground greenery starts to turn yellow and die.

If you don't harvest potatoes when the plant dies back, a couple things could happen. Most likely they will rot if the soil is wet, or they'll die once the ground freezes. But if you live in a warm and dry enough climate, any tubers that survive over the winter will sprout again in the spring.

ANSWER: Don't worry if your potato plants aren't producing blooms. The flowers are not needed in order for the plants to grow delicious tubers underground. Instead, the blossoms are linked to production of the small, green above-ground fruits that resemble tomatoes.

We publish our planned stock of certified seed potatoes every autumn so you can plan ahead for the following year – as of November 2021 we have 49 varieties listed! A few varieties should arrive in December 2021 and the rest should arrive in early January 2022.

And July is time enough to plant some late potatoes, beans and summer squash. For potatoes, one big advantage of planting late in the season is that your crops will probably miss attacks by the Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata), which is usually most active in the spring.

Potatoes are a great winter-early spring crop and at this time of the year you will find seed potatoes available in local garden centers and on-line. And there's a potato planting solution for any sized garden! They can be planted in the ground in rows or in mounds, in containers, in potato bags, or in potato towers.

It's time to plant potatoes or “taters” as Southerners say. Unlike many spring vegetables, potatoes can be planted as early as four weeks prior to the last frost of the season.