Growing Potato

Solanum tuberosum : Solanaceae / the nightshade family

Jan F M A M J J A S O N Dec
      P P              

(Best months for growing Potato in USA - Zone 5a regions)

  • P = Plant seed potatoes
  • Plant tuber. Best planted at soil temperatures between 50°F and 86°F. (Show °C/cm)
  • Space plants: 12 - 16 inches apart
  • Harvest in 15-20 weeks. Dig carefully, avoid damaging the potatoes.
  • Compatible with (can grow beside): Peas, Beans, Brassicas, Sweetcorn, Broad Beans, Nasturtiums, Marigolds
  • Avoid growing close to: Cucumber, Pumpkin, Sunflowers, Tomatoes, Rosemary

Your comments and tips

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31 Oct 12, Dallas (Australia - temperate climate)
sammy when your potatoes have reached a few inches high get a garden how and pull the soil up either of the plants sides that will give the plant the soil to grow in.I would have worked horse or cow manure into the soil before planting the normal guide to plant potatoes is the first week of Aug' that will give you spuds just before Xmas and plant again 1st week of march.It's best not to plant 2 crops in the same soil
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28 Sep 08, Grahame (Australia - temperate climate)
Mark and Kim, A word of warning on using old car tyres, while it is a great recycling idea there is a fair bit of evidence around to suggest that they leach cadmium, which you don't really want to be digesting. Also I think that cadmium can become quite concentrated in potatoes, so it's kind of a double whammy. If you are using the mounding technique with straw and compost it should be enough to make a wire mesh border to hold everything in and then you can just dismantle it and use it next year.
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21 Sep 08, Chris (Australia - cool/mountain climate)
Kim, in some parts of the country it's illegal to plant potatoes which aren't certified seed, so you might want to check for your region. I've grown ex-supermarket potatoes (especially more 'unusual' varieties, like kippfler) just by covering them with piles of wilted weeds and topping up the cover as the shoots come through, or the car tyre method like Mark describes.
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21 Sep 08, Mark (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Place 4 sheets wet newspaper on the ground,add one car tyre. Into the tyre place a good handful manure and water well. Cut up your eye potato into pieces (each with an eye) and dry for a few hours. Place pieces directly onto the wet manure and fill tyre with compost or soil. Cover with sugar cane mulch and stand back!!! Plant dwarf bean seeds under the mulch = 2 crops in one, very quickly.
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17 Sep 08, Kim Flood (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Do I need to purchase special potato tubers or can I use supermarket potatoes that have developed eyes. What are the ricks with planting old supermarket potatoes (if any).
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16 Sep 08, Liz (New Zealand - temperate climate)
Steve, it would be best if you use the manure in making compost. It has a high nitrogen content which can damage plants if used direct.
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16 Sep 08, Steve (Australia - temperate climate)
Can potatoes be grown in old horse manure or does something else need to be added??
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17 Nov 14, Kate (Australia - cool/mountain climate)
I'm new to growing potatoes or much else for that matter. My potatoes had started to sprout nice green plants about 6 cm tall. They seem to have been decimated I think by brush turkeys, I saw one near the patch but am also now thinking that they have raked the patch so other plants have not come up. There were also some fox droppings and also i think some wallaby droppings. Even though it is a bit late I'm going to plant again. How do I protect them?
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14 Sep 08, Addy (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Sandra, the 28 spotted lady bird - yellow with 26 to 28 black spots - is a pest that eats all the green leafy parts of potatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, pumpkin! I just pick them off and squash them...
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12 Sep 08, Jaci (Australia - temperate climate)
As your potato plants grow higher, continue to mound soil/compost around the stalk higher and higher until it is time to harvest the crop/plant. New tubers grow out from the stalk which grows up out of the mounded soil. Exposed tubers turn green and become inedible. Some people place old tyres around the plants and fill them with compost to continue growth upwards. When the leaves begin to yellow off is about when the new taters are ready to pull up.
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The handbook-which I provided the location to in my prior reply is not very beginner'ish but it is comprehensive covering issues you may never encounter- but you do need the reference material. I have a few thoughts to add. 1. Hilling up while the plant is growing-if you are covering leaves I find this fundamentally wrong. Leaves are specialized and designed to collect light, they are not roots. So I opt to plant my seed potatoes deep enough on day one- however I tend to have the luxury of very well airated, light soil. This means the seed potato has a steady air supply and can sense the heat from the sun even at deeper depths 2. Your seedpotatoes need all their potassium Immediately. Potatoes strangely take up all their potassium that they need really early. -and don't uptake more. If there is not enough potassium in the very early stages your potatoes might have hollow heart (looks like hollow rotting middles). Late application of potassium tends to be useless 3. Potatoes seem to respond really well to the addition of microryzal fungi - in my area we source that under pine trees in a forest- we just take some forest floor duff with a dust pan and add to the potatoe planting soil. To sum up - your seed Potatoes should be about the size of chicken eggs (if larger cut up ensuring an eye on each piece and allow a few days to heal/scab up before planting). You need to chit them(make them sprout-place in dark so they sprout). Plant in soil with Compost, a sorce of potassium and microryzal fungi. If for some reason you cannot source any compost/pottasium/microryzal fungi -plant anyhow potatoes are tough -there is still a good chance they will be Okay -depends on the condition of you soil. In my area I can water deeply once per week. Harvest when about half the leaves have fallen over as if to die. If you harvest sooner you may be compromising on size-because as long as those leaves can collect light they can store the energy in the tubers. Good luck - it is so much easier than it sounds- and all those diseases in the handbook are rare and if the plants are strong (well fed) they can manage just fine, potaoes are pretty tough root crop. In other words- you can grow potatoe.

- Celeste Archer

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