How To Grow Potatoes The Easy Way

Everyone loves potatoes. A potato is by far one of the absolute easiest crops that you can grow in your garden. You always want to try to get potatoes into the ground around early spring.

Potatoes are great for cooking and everyone knows it. Some of the tastiest dishes that I have ever made for my family utilized taters.

It still amazes me today just how many different types of potatoes you can find in the world. Yellow potatoes, brown potatoes, red potatoes, oh my!

The local grocery store will never carry all of the different shapes, colors, and varieties of potatoes that you can grow in your own organic garden.

Potatoes are ridiculously easy to grow, but it is important to remember that they should always be planted at the right time since they prefer cooler weather. Finding potato seeds is the easiest part of the equation.

Using potatoes sold at the local grocery store is easy for some people, but unfortunately they are sprayed down with chemicals that inhibit sprouting.

This is specifically why you should not attempt to grow potatoes bought from the store that have been sprayed with an inhibitor that stops sprouting.

Storing seed potatoes is perfectly ok using your refrigerator. Once you have the seed potatoes, figure out the best planting time for your particular climate.

Remember, potatoes should go into the ground during cooler times of the year. Potatoes take about three weeks to fully emerge from within the depths of the soil you planted them in.

Planting Guidelines:

• Plant potatoes approximately two weeks before the last anticipated freeze date that is 28 degrees Fahrenheit and lower. Click here to find your local frost date in case you don’t know it.
• One week before the date you have decided to start planting you will want to bring your potato seeds out of your refrigerator, and move them into a bright and warm window for one week.
• Placing the potatoes in a bright and warm window for a week will break the dormancy that the spuds are under. It will also help them to grow much more quickly once they are planted into the cool spring soil.
• If you are gardening in areas that are prone to having really hot summers try to plant the potatoes early. Play it really safe by choosing varieties of potato that mature early to mid-season. Potatoes do not grow very well once temperatures reach into the upper 90s. If temperatures pass 95 degrees the potatoes could possibly kneel over then die.
• Hotter temperatures can cause your plants to yield a much smaller amount of potatoes.

Misc Tips:

Want to save some work? You can toss your potato seed parts straight into bare ground, or a patch of sod. After that you will want to cover the seed pieces using heavy mulch, leaves, or straw. Using the steps above you can do some serious potato growing.

What you choose to do with your potatoes after you have harvested them is up to you. I prefer to stick with my family recipe mashed potatoes and gravy. Throw some garlic in there and you will have some great eats for the whole family.