Why I Plant Potatoes

Potatoes can be planted in many ways. Over the years, I have followed various schools of thought; for example, I have set the potato pieces on the surface of the tilled ground in my vegetable garden and have covered them with a layer of straw about five inches deep. When the plants have grown taller, I have added another layer of straw. Such a method is supposed to keep weeds down and make harvesting easier. I found that the tough weeds in my garden enjoyed the straw as much as the potatoes did. The wind blew straw across the rest of my garden throughout the growing season, and hoeing and cultivating my rows of other vegetables became a nuisance. When I harvested the fully formed potatoes, I accidentally sliced with my shovel just as many as I ever have—possibly more than I usually have sliced—because the straw made it difficult to know where to dig. A fork would not have worked because the potatoes grew in the soil, not just on the surface, and my soil hardens over time, making a fork impractical.

In other years, I have planted the seed pieces in a shallow trench and have covered them lightly. With this method, the gardener hoes more and more dirt up around the plants while they grow. In theory, this practice makes sense, but, in reality, the hoeing of the soil adjacent to the row removed so much dirt that deep furrows formed between the rows. Rain water stood in the furrows and eventually rotted the potatoes. Maybe my area gets too much rain. In any case, while the plants grew and while the soil hardened, hoeing more and more dirt up to the base of the plants became increasingly difficult. In the process, my hoe nicked and damaged the stems.

I have discovered that, for me, the best way to plant potatoes is to stick the seed pieces in a plowed row that is deep enough (approximately three inches) to make it easy to cover them with a thin layer of soil.

An important factor in the planting of potatoes is their preparation. Carefully using a knife, I cut the potatoes so that each piece has at least two eyes, or buds, and usually three eyes. (With only one eye, the piece might rot instead of growing a plant.) I heap the cut pieces loosely in buckets in the warmest room of my house and let them cure for at least one night and sometimes two nights. By “cure,” I mean that the pieces heal over a little in a way that I have read helps prevent rotting when they are set in the soil. I have also been in a hurry and have planted the pieces immediately after cutting the potatoes, and, to tell the truth, I have observed no difference in how many of the seed pieces rot and how many survive.

I always buy my seed potatoes from a gardening store or catalog. Potatoes in a grocery store may have been sprayed with a growth retardant that would delay their sprouting, but I have heard of gardeners who have had good success with using grocery potatoes for seed. I prefer not running the risk of a failure. Also, I pride myself on a vegetable garden that is entirely free of insecticide, fungicide, and other sprays.

My Potato Harvest, One of the Rewards of Gardening

Now, if I could just work out a system for harvesting the potatoes that would not result in slicing them with my shovel! Incidentally, I use a true shovel (with a point), not a spade (with a square edge). First, I wait until the blooming is over and the plants are beginning to turn yellow and die back. When these conditions are satisfied, I am ready to begin. I guess how far from each plant my shovel needs to be, and I use my foot to push the shovel into the earth. Gradually, the soil yields its treasure of plump potatoes! After I think I have all of them from one plant, I continue to dig around the hole I have made, on the chance that some have grown farther out, and I often dig the hole a little deeper, too.

Ultimately, I haul several bushel baskets of potatoes to my house. I probably should have mentioned at the beginning that you probably want fewer potato plants than you might think—especially if you enjoy a good growing season. My vegetable garden is what I would describe as small to medium in size, and I plant no more than two rows of potatoes. If I were to plant additional rows, I would harvest more potatoes than I would know what to do with! I try to gather just enough potatoes so that I can use them all before the last ones begin to shrink and wrinkle in the open wooden box that holds them in my pantry.