If you have space in your garden, it’s easy to plant potatoes in the ground. How do you plant potatoes in the ground?īreak up the soil well and add plenty of nutrients to give your plants the best shot. Just make sure to arrange the potatoes in a single layer, with as many of the ‘eyes’ facing upwards as possible.Īim to start chitting your potatoes around six weeks before you plant them out. Alternatively, a seed tray with some scrunched up paper at the bottom will do. While you can buy dedicated chitting trays, many gardeners swear by old egg cartons as they’re the perfect size to keep seed potatoes upright and dry. A garage or conservatory is ideal, if you have one. Ideally, it needs to be somewhere frost-free with a steady temperature. When you’ve taken delivery of your seed potatoes, you need to set them out in a cool, dry and bright position to allow them to start chitting. How long should potatoes be chitted for?Įgg trays make a great chitting solution for your potatoes. This is just another way of saying “sprouted.” Basically, you kick off the growing process of the seed potatoes before you plant them out. But they can also be planted in August or September so that you can enjoy new potatoes around Christmas.īut before you can plant your potatoes, the seed potatoes themselves need to be chitted. Typically, potatoes are planted in March for harvesting throughout the summer and autumn months. Plant your chitted seed potatoes in March, or later in the year. Second Cropping/Christmas Cropping: Planted in late summer/early autumn, these can be harvested about 14 weeks after planting, the same as second earlies.Grow these for roasting, baking, and mashing. Maincrop: These are great for winter storage and can be harvested up to 20 weeks after planting.They’re excellent for general purpose use, with many varieties making particularly good salad potatoes. Second Early: Maturing slightly later, these can be harvested about 14 weeks after planting.This variety will produce new or baby potatoes ideal for boiling or steaming. First Early: You can harvest these about 10 weeks after planting.So keep this in mind before you decide which variety of seed potatoes to get. How long it takes to grow potatoes depends on the variety you pick. How long does it take to grow potatoes?ĭifferent varieties of potato grow for different lengths of time.
#When to harvest potatoes how to#
Here’s our guide on to how to plant and grow potatoes – you’re just a few months away from your very first harvest. They're also easy to grow, whether your garden has acres of space or just enough room for a container or two.
They’re unlike anything you can buy in a shop and, in addition to punching way above their weight in flavour, they’re packed with nutrients including vitamins C, B6, and potassium. There's nothing like the taste of fresh, home-grown potatoes. Using bags or pots makes it far easier to harvest potatoes at the end of the season and the soil can be disposed of to avoid introducing diseases to your garden.Īlways remember to plant your seed potatoes with the eyes facing up.Here's our expert tips and tricks to successfully growing potatoes in UK gardens. A similar method can be used for bags and pots, just keep topping up the soil as they grow through. If they are planted in trenches, soil can be added as they grow and eventually mounded above the ground. The basic principle is that you want to be able to keep putting soil over them as they grow to improve the yield. People grow them in trenches, pots and even bags. There are many methods of potato planting. You can wait until the plants are about 15cm tall and then cover them almost completely, be sure to leave some leaves sticking out the top, so that your plants can keep growing strongly and put lots of energy into making potatoes. Plant your potatoes in trenches and then keep covering them as they grow until they grow out the top of the trench. You can use store-bought potatoes, but they can carry diseases or be treated to stop them from sprouting. Seed potatoes are bred to be disease free.
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