How to Grow Potatoes in Your Garden

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Growing your own food is such a rewarding feeling! Have you ever wanted to know how to grow your own potatoes? It’s easier than you think, and there’s nothing like eating fresh potatoes from your garden. I grew potatoes in my garden with almost no effort at all, and I’m going to share how I did that!

Why Should You Grow Your Own Potatoes?

Potatoes are one of the easiest crops to grow, and cheapest too! Most of the time I just grow my potatoes from leftover store-bought potatoes, or from the previous years harvest. All you need is some good soil, and some potatoes that have started sprouting, and you will have an abundance of potatoes in the fall! Keep reading if you want to learn how to grow potatoes in your garden!

If you are a beginner gardener, potatoes are a great crop to start with. They require very little maintenance and they are so simple to plant. It’s a lot easier than planting tiny seeds at least.

Potatoes are a pantry staple with many uses for many households, and if stored properly, they can last through the entire winter. There’s also many ways to preserve them, other than keeping them fresh. Different ways of preserving are canning, dehydrating, freeze drying, and freezing!

All About Growing Potatoes:

Potatoes take about 10-20 weeks (70-120 days) to grow from planting to harvest, depending on the variety and other factors. As a high elevation homesteader, it’s one of the many crops that I have time to grow in such a short growing season. Plant as soon as the ground has thawed and the soil is workable. No need to worry about spring freezes, potatoes are pretty hardy and will make it through, as long as you planted them deep enough beneath the soil (about 2″.)

There are many different ways to grow potatoes, and I’ve found growing them in the ground has been the most successful. If you don’t have that option, containers will work too, just make sure they aren’t too small and have proper drainage.

Can you grow potatoes from potatoes? Sounds like a silly question, but the answer is yes! Usually in the spring time, I will have an abundance of potatoes that are starting to sprout. You can grow several potato plants from a single potato, and each plant can produce 2-5lbs of potatoes per plant!

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Instructions for Growing Potatoes in Your Garden:

Growing potatoes is so easy, follow these instructions and you should have a plentiful harvest of potatoes in the fall!

Things needed for growing potatoes:

• Good Soil – Cow manure is a great growing medium, especially if aged for a few years. My garden is in our old corral system, between the hay and manure that has been breaking down for years, it’s amazing soil for growing anything! This is a very important part of having a bountiful harvest. If you don’t have cows, do your best to source local aged cow manure. Aging long enough, will ensure the soil won’t need to be mixed with other dirt. If you are using the store-bought stuff, go easy on mixing it with regular dirt, because it tends to be hot, and it can actually hinder the growth of your plants.
• Seed Potatoes – Seed potatoes can be purchased online, or you can simply use potatoes you got from the store that have started to grow eyes, (this is what the buds are called.) If seed potatoes aren’t available, here’s a variety of potatoes for planting.
• Pocket Knife – A pocket knife is a great tool to have in the garden in general, but when planting potatoes you will be cutting the potatoes. You can also do this in your kitchen if you’d like.
• Garden Hoe – This is a great tool for making rows in the garden.
• Hand Tools (for harvesting) – For harvesting I usually use hand tools, to be more gentle with the potatoes. Using bigger tools can lead to damaging potatoes, which will prevent them from storing well in the winter.
• Water – Crops won’t grow without water, so make sure to have a good watering system set up. This timer has been a life-saver for me, allowing me to have consistent daily water when I am away from home for a few days.

How to grow potatoes – Step by Step:

Step 1: Gather the seed potatoes, and cut all of the eyes (sprouts) off of the potatoes, being sure to leave a good chunk of potato around each eye. Usually I leave about an inch or so of potato for each sprout. Potatoes can be planted whole, but cutting them will get more plants out of a single potato. These cut potatoes need to sit out and dry for a day or two, which prevents them from rotting or growing fungus in the ground.

Step 2: Make sure you have the proper soil, and a designated spot for potatoes in the garden. Avoid planting near potatoes: nightshades such as tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, due to the susceptibility of pests and disease. Also avoid heavy feeders such as squash, and plants that will compete for soil space such as carrots, turnips, and beets. Raspberries and fennel are also plants to avoid, as they can inhibit growth. In my garden, my potatoes are usually always near my onions and garlic, and they have done very well.

Step 3: Now that a spot in the garden has been established, it’s time to prepare the soil. Make sure the soil is loose at least 8″ deep, and build some rows. I usually build “double” rows for potatoes, about two feet wide, planting one potato on each side of the row. Generally, potatoes should be 8-10 inches apart.

Time for planting

Step 4: Once the cut potatoes are dry, it’s time to plant them. In your rows, plant each cut potato about 3-5″ deep, and about 8-10″ apart. After planting, be sure to water them. Keep the soil moist, but be sure not to overwater, or they will grow fungus. Some people will pile dirt around the plants as they grow, but I only do this if I see any potatoes start to show.

Step 5: Let the plants grow until fall when they start to die off. Once they start dying, stop watering them. When almost completely dried out, potatoes are ready to harvest. I have left potatoes until the plants are completely dried out, and they were still great, so there’s a large window of harvesting, which is nice if you are busy with other projects. The potatoes will be fine in the ground for quite a while, as long as the ground isn’t wet. In some places potatoes can even be left in the ground and continued to be gathered throughout winter.

Troubleshooting Potatoes:

Overwatering

If the potato plants aren’t growing well, this could be a number of things. Check soil for excess moisture. Overwatering can stunt growth. It’s actually better to underwater than to overwater with potatoes. As long as the plant isn’t wilting, water is sufficient. Overwatering potatoes as they are growing can also cause the scab fungus/disease.

Soil ph

Another thing to consider is the soil. Potatoes are happiest in soil that leans just a little on the acidic side, with the sweet spot being a pH of about 5.5 to 6.8. They’ll still grow outside that range (anywhere from 4.5 up to 8.5), but keeping it around 5.0–5.5 can help protect your crop from common scab, which is a headache nobody wants. If your soil is running a little too high on the pH scale, you can bring it down naturally by mixing in things like pine needles or a bit of sulfur. On the other hand, if your soil is too low, adding lime or even some wood ash will give it the boost it needs.

small potatoes

There will always be small potatoes with any potato harvest, but if you don’t have at least 50% good sized potatoes, it may be a sign that they were either underwatered, or the soil didn’t have enough fertilizer. This goes back to making sure the dirt and manure ratio is spot on.

In Conclusion:

Now that you’ve learned all about how to grow potatoes, I hope you have a bountiful harvest of potatoes this season! Not only are potatoes fun to harvest, but they have so many different uses! Check out my Venison Corned Beef Hash Recipe, I used fresh potatoes from my garden and it was delicious! Other meats such as beef can also be substituted in this recipe! Garlic is another crop that is so easy to grow, you can learn more about planting garlic in your garden here.

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