Planting Potatoes

Some people think that potatoes are cheap enough at the supermarket that they shouldn't bother wasting the garden space to grow their own potatoes at home.  These people have clearly never tasted a freshly dug, home grown potato.  Not to mention that there is a large variety of potatoes that can be grown at home that you would never find at your local grocery store.  Potatoes also keep very well in the right conditions, so there is no reason not to grow enough to last a whole year.

A few weeks ago, I saw that the local co-op had gotten in the first of the seed potatoes.  I promptly bought 10 each of Chieftain (a red skinned variety), Yukon Gold (a yellow fleshed variety), and Purple Viking (a purple skinned and fleshed variety).  I made sure that each potato that I choose was medium sized and had a number of eyes (the sprouting part).  I then set the seed potatoes in a sunny window for a week to allow the sprouts to get a head start before I put them in the ground.  The night before planting I cut each potato in half, making sure that each half had a couple of eyes.  This allows the potato to scab over the cut part and doubled the number of seed potatoes that I can plant.

Last year I only planted one bed of potatoes and I harvested about 50 pounds from a 3 x 10 foot bed.  This only lasted me until early January with an early August harvest, so this year I decided that I should plant twice as many which should hopefully last me all year.  I space my potatoes about a foot apart in a grid pattern.  This gives the roots of the plants plenty of room for potato formation, though the tops tend to grow out of the beds once they really get going.  I figure I can give up some of my pathways in the garden later in the season if it means I will get a good harvest in the fall.

This bed contains all of the Purple Viking potatoes and half of the Chieftain potatoes.

This bed contains the other half of the Chieftain potatoes and all of the Yukon Golds.

Once each bed was planted I blanketed them with a thick layer of mulch.  This is for weed control as well as moisture regulation.  Once the potatoes come up, I will add more layers of mulch every few weeks as they grow.  I tried this thick mulching method last year and was very happy about how easy the potatoes were to harvest.