Preparing and Growing Potatoes

In the Dallas, Texas area where I live, potatoes are planted on Valentine’s Day. However, you really need to buy your seed potatoes two weeks earlier to get them ready for planting. I went to North Haven Gardens to get my seed potatoes. You can grow red potatoes, Yukon Gold potatoes, white potatoes, and some fun ones that are purple. I got a red potato, a Yukon Gold, and a purple one.

Getting Seed Potatoes

Make sure that you are purchasing seed potatoes that are guaranteed disease-free. The Irish potato blight not only still exists, but attacks more than potatoes. You do not want to introduce this pathogen into your garden. Grocery store potatoes are sprayed with a growth retardant, so don’t use those.

Cutting the Seed Potatoes

When you get home with your potatoes, you can use smaller potatoes whole or cut larger ones into two or three pieces, each with two to three eyes on them. Set the potatoes in a dry area for two to three days to let the cut faces scab over. Place the potatoes cut side up.

Sprouting the Potatoes

Some people dust the dry cut sides with sulfur to make them slightly acidic and to keep them from rotting. Next, take the potatoes and place them cut side down in an area with bright sunlight for around 10 days. The eyes will sprout. They are very fragile so make sure they are somewhere safe from pets and people.

Preparing the Soil

Before planting your potatoes, you need to prep the place where you will plant them. Dig a trench six to eight inches deep and four inches wide. Put a balanced 10-10-10 fertilizer on the bottom of the trench and water it in. Cover it with an inch of soil. Place the potatoes in the trench with the sprouts pointing up. They need to be eight to ten inches apart. Cover the potatoes with four to six inches of pine straw or loose soil.

Hilling the Potatoes

Do not water the potatoes again until the sprouts emerge from the dirt. That usually takes a few weeks. When the stems are six to eight inches tall, backfill the trench with more pine straw and the soil you took out of the trench. Each time the stems get to be six to eight inches tall, mound dirt around them. Do this two to three times. The growing potatoes must be covered or they will turn green and be inedible.

Fertilizer

You will need to side-dress the potatoes once during the growing season. If you do not have a recent soil test, use a fertilizer designed for vegetables, such as Espoma GT18 Garden Tone.

Watering

It is very important to manage how much water the potatoes get. Too much and they rot. Too little and you do not get many potatoes. Do not let water stand, but do not let the soil around the potatoes dry out, either. Keep them moist.

When you water, it is best to do so early in the morning. This lets the plants dry before nightfall. Try not to get water on your potato’s leaves. If you see spots on the leaves, immediately treat them with an organic fungicide. In a wet spring, you may have to repeat the fungicide application every seven to ten days.

Reduce Watering

When the potato begins to flower, the potatoes are being formed. Begin to reduce watering so they won’t rot. When the plants get yellow, stop all watering.

Harvesting

Small potatoes can be harvested two to three weeks after flowering, typically in May if you plant on Valentine’s Day. Larger potatoes can be harvested two to three weeks after the foliage dies. Be gentle, and dig eight to ten inches from the plants, then work your way in. Be careful not to bruise or cut the potatoes.

Storage

You can wash and eat the potatoes when you harvest them. For storage, leave the potatoes in a dark dry place to cure. Do not wash them until you are ready to eat them.