One of my absolute favorite crops to grow is potatoes. I love how harvesting them feels like you’re on a treasure hunt. There’s something so fun about digging around in the soil and finding each potato, then pulling it out to see what treasure you’ve found.
Because potatoes grow underground, you’re never really sure what you’re going to get. If you grow several varieties together, like I do, it’s even more exciting.
As I mentioned, potatoes grow underground like carrots. That fact has always fascinated me. Vines grow from the eyes on the seed potatoes you plant, and then along these vines new potatoes appear.
- Use seed potatoes or mini tubers, which you can get at the nursery and through mail order. You can also have luck growing potatoes from the store if green growth appears from the eyes like this.
- Cut the potatoes into 1 1/2-inch chunks, each with at least one eye on them.
- If growing the potatoes in containers, fill the pot 2/3 full with high-quality potting soil and push the seed potato chunks 2 to 3 inches deep, then cover with soil.
- When growing potatoes in the ground, ensure you have worked the soil well and added pumice. Insert the seed potato chunks 2 to 3 inches deep and cover with soil.
- Once the vines start growing, keep the plants well watered but never soggy.
- When the vines reach 4 to 6 inches tall, begin “dirting” them. This refers to mounding soil over the stems, leaving 2 inches of stem aboveground. As the vines grow, continue adding soil like this until they flower.
- When the plants flower, you can begin digging up new baby potatoes. Do the final harvest when the foliage yellows and dies.
Learn even more about growing potatoes and 40 more veggies in my book Southern California Vegetable Gardening, which you can get in paperback and eBook, and can be read for free on Kindle Unlimited.
