Potatoes

[bellahpereira]

Does anyone know the most effective way to plant potatoes? I think I may want to try them out next year, but I certainly want to make sure I know how to do it before I even consider it further.

Has anyone planted them before?

 

[Jed]

Depending on where you live will depend on what time of the seasons you plant. Some places you can plant twice a year.
I live in a temperate zone with late /early summer frosts so I need to ensure leaves don't appear while in this period. The method I use is to dig a trench 8" deep with a long handle shovel and manure the bottom of the trench with compost or blood and bone fertiliser. The potatoes I use, I don't both cutting in half to plant but use the whole tuber. You can buy certified potato tubers from nurseries or agricultural suppliers. This may ensure you have disease free crop but it isn't 100% from my own experience. This year I chose to plant healthy looking potatoes from the super market.A risk I know but my disease situation couldn't be any worse than what I already have on my property.
These tubers are placed at the bottom of the trench 1 foot apart and backfilled with the soil. As the leaves appear, I cover them with straw with the tops sticking out. This is done several times with the straw maybe as much as a foot deep. When my frost danger is over I allow the plant to go for it without any more mulching.You can just hill up with soil but the mulch is a soil conditioner and the earth worms love it.
A second and a third row are spaced 2 foot and 4 foot from the first.
When the plants go brown and die back you can harvest from beneath the mulch.
I live in the southern hemisphere and plant potatoes here in October. Potato growers in frost free areas plant in August and again in December. It's important to rotate your potato crop to different areas.

 

[lovinglife]

I am in zone 6, we plant in the spring 3-4 chunks in a hole 6-8 inches deep. I live in Idaho. famous potatoes.. Store bought spuds are treated with a sprout inhibitor, so I either use my own from previous year or buy seed potatoes. If you get a late frost, no worries, the tops wil die but come right back with no problems. They like soft soil so they can grow good.

 

[Jed]

I am in zone 6, we plant in the spring 3-4 chunks in a hole 6-8 inches deep. I live in Idaho. famous potatoes.. Store bought spuds are treated with a sprout inhibitor, so I either use my own from previous year or buy seed potatoes. If you get a late frost, no worries, the tops will die but come right back with no problems. They like soft soil so they can grow good.

Thanks for letting us know of those inhibitors. I had never known that potatoes are treated with these.I had a google and was surprised to read the info. I couldn't find anything for Australia but I guess if the sprays are out there farmers will use them.I bought local potatoes that were on the verge of sprouting so feel comfortable that all is fine. I used to use my own seed potato but decided to try certified after hearing a respected gardener on the radio saying you should only use certified seed. This was a mistake and I some how ended up with a potato disease. So now it's a long haul to get on top of the disease.
With frosts, I had a frost one year 2 weeks before Christmas which killed the tops and then on Christmas morning another killer frost and I basically lost the entire crop. That's why I try to now plan for these late frosts. All down to knowing your environment.

 

[willyg]

its easy to grow potatoes, last year i just made holes and placed seed potatoes in after chitting them for a month and covered them up , then i earthed up the soil every week or two but then i got lazy and left it , around mid to late summer they all got blight and died but before that happened they grew into big plants and i left them all in the soil all winter and i just dug them up today . some are still fine but i wont risk eating them due to the rest getting blight .

but it is pretty easy, just remember to never eat a green potato because they are poisonous , that is why you earth up the potatoes by covering the tubers with dirt so theyre not exposed to the air . but i barely did that much i just made 2 big mounds up the raised bed with a trench in between and left it after burying the seed potatoes deep.

but if you want to do it properly it is better.

 

[Dawn]

Would someone in zone 7b be able to plant these times? I'm considering starting a potato bed.

 

[headfullofbees]

Here are the conditions you need to grow potatoes:
Growing medium temp above 8C (46F)
Frost free conditions for the leaves.
For very early potatoes these conditions are needed for 13 weeks
For 2nd earlies 15-17 weeks
For maincrop 20-22 weeks.
I'm not promising you the best harvests in the World, as spuds like more warmth and some rain, but they WILL grow.

 

[Belmont]

I live in zone 4a. My great grandfather planted potatoes every year until a couple years ago, and almost every year we got at least 300lbs of potatoes. It wasn't a huge garden, but it wasn't small either. It is possible to grow potatoes in colder climates.

 

[Fernsdaddy]

I buy my planting potatoes from a farm stand every fall then save them for my next spring planting. I always plant them the last week of April when its safe from a frost.

 

[headfullofbees]

I'm planting my main-crop (fall) potatoes next week, six weeks before my last frost date.
The soil is warm enough (it's actually 10C/50f) and the tubers are hardy down to -6C, so, by the time I hill them up, the foliage, which is frost tender, won't appear above ground until after last frost.