How to Grow Potatoes

There is romance in the humble potato, not only in its discovery in the New World and its role in the Irish diaspora after the great Potato Famine of 1845–1850 but also in the beauty of the species. When grown in places like Peru, the harvest is extraordinarily diverse – all shapes and sizes, and colours from white, cream and lemon to rose-pink, red, deep blue, lavender and purple, striped, splashed and blushed with colour.

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Fresh potatoes straight from the garden Photo: iStock

This huge biodiversity extends to the taste, with a range of flavours we never experience from store-bought potatoes. This biodiversity is also the farmers’ insurance against the kind of fungal disease that once destroyed Ireland’s entire crop, based on just one variety susceptible to a strain of late blight. Growing some of the varieties listed here offers new culinary opportunities, and new season potatoes taste so good harvested fresh from your own garden.

Planning the crop
Potatoes grow best in an open position. If grown in shade, the haulm, or green top, becomes lank and spindly as it reaches up towards the light. Potatoes grow reasonably well in most soils, but well-manured land gives the best results. Dig the soil in autumn or winter, working in compost or well-rotted manure at the rate of a bucketful to the square metre. A fortnight before planting, dress the soil using a mixture of two parts superphosphate, one part sulphate of ammonia and one part sulphate of potash, using the mixture at the rate of 120 g per square metre. Alternatively, apply a general purpose fertiliser at the rate of 60–90 g per square metre.

How much to grow- Potatoes take up a lot of space, so The amount you grow depends on how valuable these vegetables are to the family economy. A 6 m x 6 m bed might produce about 200 kg of main-crop potatoes, which could keep a family of four supplied for six months or more. A bed of this size, however, is as big as the whole vegetable plot in many gardens, and such a yield would need good manuring and cultivation. Early potatoes give a much smaller yield but are harvested from early summer, when prices are still comparatively high.

Preparing seed potatoes for planting- Buy seed potatoes in winter and take them out of their bags at once and place in a cool, well-ventilated room. After a week or two, set them in seed trays with their ‘eyes’ (from which the sprouts will grow) uppermost. Place the trays in a cool room. In four or five weeks the sprouts should be sturdy and, ideally, 1–2.5 cm long. Sprouted, or ‘chitted’, in this way, the potatoes have a longer growing season and produce a heavier crop.