Grow Your Own Potatoes

So you're thinking about planting some potatoes, huh? Once those babies go in the ground, you're in for a bit of a wait, but the treasure you can dig up in a couple months will be well worth it! Get the butter and sour cream ready, though you won't need much because your homegrown potatoes will be the best ones you've ever had!

Are Potatoes Vegetables?

For culinary purposes, you can classify potatoes as vegetables. That's a really broad category though, and it doesn't tell us gardeners very much about how to actually grow potatoes.

So for gardening purposes, we're going to classify potatoes as a root crop. Potatoes are technically tubers, meaning they're fleshy underground stems that grow new plants through buds. Similar to roots, tubers store nutrients for the entire potato plant.

I lump potatoes and sweet potatoes (which are tuberous roots) in with roots like carrots, beets, and radishes for one obvious reason: The part we want to eat grows underground. But also, knowing how to grow one goes a long way in helping you know how to grow the others.

Potatoes vs Sweet potatoes

Even though they look pretty similar and have similar growth habits, these tubers actually come from two different plant families. Potatoes are from the Solanaceae family, also known as the nightshade family, while sweet potatoes are from the Convolvulaceae family. 

The tubers differ in how they're planted, though neither is planted by seed the way so many other garden veggies are. Potatoes are planted by seed potatoes or cut tubers, while sweet potatoes are typically planted by slips, which are those little shoots of green that grow from the tuber.

Potatoes prefer warm weather, while sweet potatoes thrive in the heat. They also have slightly different water preferences. Potatoes need a bit more moisture, while sweet potatoes are drought-tolerant. I recommend sweet potatoes as the perfect crop for gardeners who plan to travel over the summer.

Other than those differences, both tubers hold nutrients for the plant to help it grow. They're built for longevity, which is why you can store potatoes and sweet potatoes on you pantry shelf way after leafy greens have wilted and tomatoes have molded. They also retain their nutrients long after harvest.

How Potatoes Grow

If you've never grown potatoes before, it helps to know a bit how the plant will actually grow before you pop these things in the ground and hope for the best.

Tubers multiply underground, but you will see a significant amount of leafy growth above ground. Basically, one tuber produces above-ground stems and underground stems, and more tubers form at the end of these stems. This is a lot of multiplication. That's why larger potatoes generally require about 90 to 120 days to fully mature and be ready for harvest.

It'll be worth the wait, I promise. By the time you dig up your potato plant, each tuber piece you planted will now be attached to more tubers via these underground stems.

How Many Potatoes Form Per Plant?

You can expect at least five to six new potatoes for each potato you plant. If only every plant multiplied this way! There’s something so magical about pulling up a potato plant and seeing so many new potatoes attached to the small one you planted months ago. 

The Best Potato Types to Grow at Home

There are many different varieties of potatoes you can grow in your garden. The important thing is to buy organic and local if you can. Look for the USDA organic emblem.

"Purple Majesty" Are My Favorite Purple Potatoes

I love growing "purple majesty" because I find them unique looking, with their dark skins and purple flesh, and I prefer to grow things I can't typically find at the grocery store. These are great for frying. Purple french fries, anyone?

"Purple majesty" plants take about 85 days to mature and produce spuds that are 3 to 4 inches long.

"Rio Grande" Are Fast-Growing Russet Potatoes

There's nothing like a good ol' russet for a baked potato on a chilly night, and these guys are loaded with antioxidants (make sure to eat the skins—don't worry, they're flavorful!).

This cultivar produces spuds with rust-brown skin and white flesh that are about 4 to 5 inches long. "Rio Grande" potatoes are ready in just under 65 days.

"Yukon Gold" Potatoes Are a Classic

"Yukon gold" potatoes are a hybrid that were created to boil well and make fluffy mashed potatoes. When roasted, you get that great crunchy skin on the outside and creamy goodness on the inside.

These taters are "early", meaning they reach maturity in just 65 days.

"Russian Banana" Are Gourmet Potatoes Worth the Wait

These fingerlings have thin skin and firm, delicious flesh—perfect for potato salads. They hold up well to cooking and keep their shape.

When mature, they're about 3 to 4 inches long, but they'll take 95 to 125 days to get there.

Whichever types you choose, make sure they have some sprouts.

Where to Grow Potatoes

Every family tree has at least one cousin that doesn't quite fit in, right? For the Solanaceae family, that cousin is the humble potato, which likes to grow a little differently than its tomato, pepper, and eggplant kin. Potatoes take up a lot of space and thrive in a different soil pH level than the rest of the veggies you might want to grow in your garden.

For that reason, I’ve found over the years that I actually prefer growing my potatoes outside of my raised garden bed. I bury my potato tubers right in the ground of my pollinator garden, but you can plant yours wherever you’ve got at least six hours of sunlight, though eight hours is ideal. You also want to pick a spot that doesn't have a large tree or other plant whose roots will compete with your potatoes' growth. 

No need to worry about grow bags, containers, or pots. You don't even have to have a raised bed to get started. Just plant your potatoes in the ground following the steps below for a heavy yield at the end of summer.

If you don't have a good in-ground space for your potatoes yet, you can easily create a row garden by sheet mulching. Place cardboard down, then add compost, hay, and other natural things that break down over time. Top it all off with several inches of compost. If you already have a row garden set up, that's the perfect spot to grow these spuds.

When to Plant Potatoes

Potatoes like warm weather and lots of sunshine, but you can actually plant them while it's still cold outside. Potatoes can go in the ground earlier than their cousins, and that's because they're going, well, in the ground, where they'll be nice and protected.

I plant my potatoes two to four weeks before my final frost date, even if the directions on the variety I'm growing say to wait until after the last frost. That way, my potatoes are growing and producing before it gets too hot.

If the soil can be worked, plant away, my friends.

All right, let's go over, step by step, how to plant and grow your organic potatoes. 

Dig a Trench for Your Potato Plant

I like to say "worst first," as in we often have to do the hard part first, and that definitely applies here. We begin planting our potatoes by putting in some muscle work!

Dig a long trench about one foot deep to loosen the soil before planting. This is another reason I like to plant potatoes in the ground instead of in my raised garden beds—it's hard to dig such a deep hole without disturbing other roots in a raised bed.

While you're digging, remove any weeds growing nearby.

Prepare the Space for Your Potato Plant

Potatoes prefer more acidic dirt. You can buy acidifiers to amend your garden soil, but I’ve found that potatoes planted in compost grow totally tubular, as well. Add about two to three inches of compost in the trench. I use Espoma’s Organic Mushroom Compost. 

This way, when potatoes are first planted, they'll feel like they're in 100 percent compost, which will give them a great start.

Plant Potatoes with Sprouts

Instead of seeds, potatoes grow from potato parts. You have two options to begin: you can buy seed potatoes or you can prepare potatoes with sprouts already growing from the store.

I buy a variety of seed potatoes from my local nursery, though I’ve also had success planting organic potatoes from the grocery store that have sprouted eyes. Regular potatoes will likely have been sprayed with a sprout-inhibitor and won't grow.

You can plant the whole tuber or cut it into pieces to plant each eye separately (more bang for your buck). If you do cut, give the pieces a good 24 hours to scab over before planting—that’ll help you avoid rot and mold once they go in the ground. 

Place the growths sprouting from each eye upward—that's what the plant will grow from. I plant about 12 inches apart, even when the packet directions suggest 18 inches. We like to break the plant-spacing rules here at Gardenary. 

Add in some mulch or garden soil, but don’t fill in the trench completely just yet. You'll add more compost once your potato sprouts really start to grow.

Water Your Potato Plants

Once you’ve covered your little tubers up, give them a good watering in. 

You'll have to attend carefully to the watering situation while you've got potatoes growing. Too little water, and these spuds won’t have the energy to swell and store nutrients. Too much water, and the tubers will rot or mold in the swampy conditions you’ve created. The goal is to give these roots a deep watering and then allow the area to dry out before watering again. 

Cover Your Potato Leaves with More Dirt

Once your potato plant starts to produce leaves, you'll notice those leaves actually look similar to tomato leaves (which makes sense because they're both nightshades), and believe it or not, potato plants even produce flowers that look very similar to eggplant and tomato flowers. Here's what it means when your potatoes flower.

It's now time to do something called hilling. That means you'll add extra soil and compost around the base of the plant to strengthen root growth and add extra support to these first stems and leaves appearing above ground. Some gardeners swear by completely covering the leaves of their potato plants every few weeks because new tubers will grow along the stems that are now buried.

Hilling Also Prevents You from Ending Up with Potatoes with Green Skin

Potatoes that are exposed to sunlight during growth (or storage) are reacting to sunlight on their flesh and creating chlorophyll. Just like we wouldn't want to eat a potato leaf, we don't want to eat a green potato skin, just to be on the safe side.

Reap the Potato Growing Rewards

Potatoes do take quite a long time to form. Remember they have to literally multiply themselves underground. I generally plant my potatoes in April and don't harvest them until August, which is about 90 to 100 days after planting. Here's your step-by-step guide to harvesting potatoes.

And remember, you can typically expect to get five to six potatoes off of each tuber you planted. Pretty good returns, I'd say! What else gives you five to six times your investment in just 90 days?!

It's Potato Growing Time!

That, my friends, is the dirty and very fun job of planting potatoes. But you haven't gotten to the really fun part yet.

Digging up potatoes at the end of the summer will very well be one of the simplest, purest joys your garden can give you. Grab your kids, grab your camera—it's gonna be the best type of treasure hunt in your own backyard!