How to Grow Potatoes

Growing potatoes is one of the most rewarding gardening endeavors. It's tough to wait, they're not the fastest crop. They are one of the more reliable, easy to grow, and substantial things you can grow in a home garden.

Seed Potatoes

Potatoes grow well in northern climates and in Alaska, where we live and garden. While potatoes aren't the most exciting thing to grow they are indeed a staple. They're a crop that we can grow easily in Alaska in a home garden, and they'll actaully feed your family. I love me some herbs. They're honestly one of my favorite things to have fresh during our growing season. But, dill doesn't feed hungry kids!

Potatoes provide real substance and calories

We're blessed that the majority of us have never truly needed our crops to grow. Is it helpful and wonderful? Yes. But we have never truly relied on our garden the way people a few generations before us did.

In a real "need food" situation potatoes would take over a large part of my garden. They're easy to grow. Really, very easy to grow. I've grown them in buckets, hay bales, raised beds, raised rows, and in native soil. My least successful run at potatoes was actually inside of our high tunnel the first year. Once I was able to break space for them outside of the tunnel they will likely never take up space in the tunnel again.

In Alaska, moose are probably are most annoying garden pests. Moose leave potatoes alone! Moose will step on your plants, take a bite out of your cabbage, and just screw up your garden. We currently do not have a space outside of our high tunnel that is protected from moose so we keep most brassicas inside of the tunnel.

How to Grow Potatoes

You'll Need:

• Seed potatoes (potatoes that have been cleared of disease)

• A place to grow with over 6 hours of sunlight

• Something to grow the potatoes in: Soil, hay, grass clippings

Steps:

• In the spring purchase or aquire potatoes that you can sprout. Seed potatoes are the recommended route as they have been inspected for disease. If a potato has eyes and is sprouting you could grow more potatoes from it,

• We like to allow our potatoes to sit out with some light for a few weeks, Ideally you'll want sprouts that are a couple of inches long. Anthing over four inches or so and you'll need to be careful not to break the sprouts.

• Cut the potatoes so there a couple of eyes on each piece.

• Prepare your planting space.

• Always plant with at least one potato "eye" or sprout facing up.

• Depending on where you intend to grow your potatoes the method will be slightly different.

• Straw Bales: Push the potato as been into the bale as you can

• Native Soil: Burry the potato about 6 inches deep and have soil/grass clippings ready to hill with as the the potatoes grow. We put a piece roughly every foot, or so. Space rows about a foot and a half to two feet apart.

• Buckets or Containers: Place a few inches of soil in the bucket, pot, or container. Add one potato, fill the bucket with soil. (Don't forget drainage holes! My first attempt at growing potatoes after getting married ended in a mess. Drainage holes are a must, ha!)

• Raised beds or rows: Same as buckets or containers

• Giving potatoes a bit of food or fertilzer is great and improves yeild, but honestly we've grown them without it.

• Water when needed. This will depend on your weather and climate. I only water our potatoes if we've had a dry spell. Mulch in the form of grass clippings or leaves is helpful for retaining moisture in the soil.

What variety of potatoes should I grow?

A variety is my favorite answer! It's oh so fun to have a harvest of many colors! However, a russet is a great no nonsense choice. Yukon gold, while delicious, often has bad areas in larger potatoes so it isn'y my favorite. We've grown many varities and we are again this year. If I end up with a strong favorite I'll update this.

When to harvest potatoes

Ideally, let the vines die back. When the vines have died back you're ready to harvest. The bulk of our potatoes is one of the very last things to come in from the garden. Get them out before a hard freeze, but several frosts are just fine!

How to store potatoes

We don't have a root cellar. I've succesfully stored potatoes in our pantry and garage well into winter. Keep them away from light, check them regularly. If you have more than you can store fresh shred them into hashbrowns and freeze them or make a big batch of gnochi to freeze.

How to use potatoes

The humble potato is the star of so many favorites. Mash them, shred them, bake them, fry them, boil them, roast them, add them to bread...The list goes on! Only certain varities are safe to can, and as a low acid food they must be pressure canned. When we have an abundance of potatoes I like to partially prepare them and freeze them. Another really simple way we enjoy potatoes, escpeially around harvest, is simply cut into peices, boiled, drained, and buttered. Add some salt, pepper, and a dash of gralic powder.

Growing potatoes with kids

Potatoes are probably one of our kid's favorite things to grow. From a young age they can help. There are no small seeds to handle, the spacing in forgiving, they're easy to move around, and harvesting them is so much fun!

Our newest potato area. We broke native ground by hand in a few hours. We've been mulching with grass clippings and supressing the weeds along the edges with cardboard. You don't need a huge amount of space to grow potatoes! Flip some weeds upside down, plant a few seed potatoes, and see what happens!

Growing potatoes in second year stawbales was honestly one of the easiest and cleanest ways we've grown potatoes. I would definitely do it again!

Growing potatoes is one of the easiest and most rewarding garden activties. Even in difficult, northern climates like Alaska they thrive and produce a substantial harvest.