Potatoes
Introduction
Growing potatoes is not difficult to do, but does involve significant work at the beginning preparing the potato bed, and at the end harvesting the crop and clearing up. Tasks that require physical effort.
The work involved in growing potatoes is tremendously rewarding. It is hard to beat the satisfying feeling of wheelbarrrowing home a successful crop from the allotment, knowing that the harvest can be stored and used as a staple food to feed your family through the cold winter months.
Planting
- Planting depth: 15 cm
- Planting spacing: 40 cm between plants, 100 cm between rows (minimum)
Harvesting
- Dig up as required in early summer, and dig up all potatoes by September
- Dry potatoes and store in thick cardboard boxes or bags, excluding all light
(inside)
(outside)
(fresh)
(stored)
= jar, 
= freeze, = store
Varieties
All potato types are planted in the spring. The difference is that early varieties are more tolerant of colder weather, mature faster, and require a little less space between plants. Main crop potatoes are planted a little later, take longer to mature, but typically produce bigger potatoes.
First Earlies
From sowing to harvesting this can be as little as ten weeks. They can be planted in trenches about 30 cm or 12″ apart, and with 50 cm between the rows. They are harvested when the plants are about to flower. Start by digging up one plant and, if the potatoes are of sufficient size, you know they are ready.
Second Earlies
Second earlies take significantly longer to grow – around 16 -18 weeks – and are larger is size than first earlies. Allow a little more space between the tubers and rows than first earlies, and wait for the plants to flower and wilt, or yellow a little, before digging up.
Main Crop
The recommended spacing is around 40 cm or 15″ apart and rows around 75 cm apart. Time to harvest is about 20 weeks. Main crop potatoes are the type to choose if you intend to store for winter use.
Salad Potatoes
These are varieties grown for culinary use in salads. The potatoes are typically smaller than other types, and do not disintegrate or flake away during boiling. This property for retaining their shape makes them ideal for serving as boiled potatoes or served cold in salads (and less good for mash and roast potatoes).
In addition, potatoes are sometimes described as being floury or waxy.
Floury Potatoes
Floury potatoes have a tendency to fall apart when boiling. This property is ideal for mashed potatoes, and for absorbing fat and crisping up when making chips or roast potatoes.
Waxy Potatoes
Waxy potatoes hold their shape better than floury potatoes. Waxy potatoes make great boiled potatoes or salad potatoes, but they do not mash well.
The easy way for a gardener to organise their growing and discover gardening ideas.
Growing
Having a healthy back is a good starting point for planting potatoes. Potatoes like a well dug soil, and the ideal approach is to spend a few hours digging trenches for a potato bed.
This effort has a number of advantages. It breaks up the soil, and allows young potato tubers to form without being misshapen by lumps or large stones. It buries all weeds that may be present in the potato bed. And, of course, it is excellent exercise after a winter rest! Another advantage of deep trenches (around a spade deep) is that it allows seed potatoes a period of growth below ground, after which any risk of frost has usually passed. The deep trench with loose soil provides an ideal space for the potato tubers to grow in.
I like to generously space apart the rows of potatoes. Potato plants grow big, and it is helpful to allow some space between the rows to walk down for watering and weeding. Also, potato plants need to be earthed up, and this earth needs to come from somewhere. I find the easiest way is to ‘borrow it’ from the ground either side of the trench. If there is not enough space between rows, there will not be enough soil to earth up with.
Having space also makes a difference at harvest time. Digging up potatoes means that the displaced earth needs to be put somewhere. If it can be piled up between the rows of potatoes, this makes the process easier.
Potatoes do not like a waterlogged soil, but the tubers will not grow to a big size without regular watering. A rule of thumb is to soak the trenches of the freshly planted potatoes on day 1 of planting, and then water once a week in hot weather, or every two weeks otherwise. I have learned the importance of doing this through experience, as potatoes growing in dry soil may never swell beyond the size of marbles.
When the potato plants are 30 cm high, this is the ideal time to start earthing them up. The purpose of earthing up is to eliminate all light from reaching the tubers growing beneath the soil. Potatoes turn green, and poisonous, if they have been exposed to sunlight and they must not be eaten. When storing potatoes, it is important to exclude all light for the same reason. I take soil from between the rows of potatoes, and carefully pile this up the sides of the potato plants.
After a few more weeks, and the odd good watering, the potato plants become even more self-sufficient. Hoeing between the plants no longer becomes necessary as the plants thicken. Soon after you will see flowers, followed by the production of green berries. Like with green potatoes, the berries are poisonous, so you may want to remove them or advise children to leave them well alone. Flowers and berries are also an indicator that potato tubers are swelling below the ground, and means it is a very good time to give the plants a thorough soaking with water.
With luck and good weather, the potato plants will continue to mature, before eventually wilting and turning yellow, which marks the end to their growth cycle, and showing that their delicious produce below ground is fully grown and ready for harvesting.
To harvest, I prefer to use a combination of a garden spade to dig down around the plants to the depth of where I believe the tubers should be, and then scramble through the dirt using my gardening gloves to find the potatoes. This method minimises the risk of damaging the tubers with a fork or hand trowel.
The final task of the summer is to return the potato bed to a flat and level surface ready for the next growing season. It is recommended to keep rotating the growing bed of potato plants, ideally not returning to the same spot until the fourth year.