Growing potatoes

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Growing potatoes is easier than you think. So easy that you don’t even need a greenhouse. You could grow these on a balcony or a patio. If you love new potatoes then this is something you really should try and it’ll give you the best tasting, freshest potatoes ever!

First earlies will benefit from chitting to produce the earliest crops – the Swift is a first early and is as the name suggests, a fast grower and can be ready to crop in as little as 7 weeks from planting!

Chitting means letting them sprout. You stand them in a dry frost free place in the light and allow the shoots to grow. They do this without any soil or water – as you will know if you’ve ever had potatoes inside your kitchen for more than a few days!

It’s best to start these growing bag first earlies off somewhere other than outside though to give them a good start! A porch or conservatory or a greenhouse or shed will do. As foliage develops you need to top up the compost to cover the green leaves.

Start you first early potatoes in the greenhouse or conservatory, this ensures warmer soil for quicker development. As foliage develops, regularly add more soil compost to ‘earth up’ your crops

You start the potatoes off at the right planting time (Indoors: February to March / Outdoors: March-April). You should place three tubers on top of a 15-20cm layer of decent compost in each Gro-Sack(TM) and then cover the tubers with a further 10cm layer of compost.

You must keep the compost damp but not wet at all times. It it gets too wet then it can cause the tubers to rot.

As the plants grow and shoots emerge above the surface, add more compost to cover the shoots and then repeat as needed until the compost is about 2in/5cm below the top of the bag. As the weather improves you can put the bag outside, take care to pick up the Gro-Sack with its two strong carrying handles and relocate to a outdoor position. Get someone to assist it the bag is too heavy for you.

Use a high potash fertiliser on the green foliage to increase yield. Avoid a nitrogen rich fertiliser as this benefits only the leaves.

Watering needs to be regular and the need will increase as the tubers grow – this is as the foliage is big and flowers start to form..

Harvest times do depend on planting dates, as well as weather during the growing season, plus different varieties take different times.

However First Earlies are always best harvested in small quantities and eaten straightaway when fresh in June and July.

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3. Growing Potatoes in Containers
4. Requirements for growing potatoes in the garden
5. Potato Farming Patio Style

Posted on May 5th, 2010 under Growing potatoes, Growing potatoes ways, How to grow potatoes. Tags: Fertilizer, garden, Growing Potatoes in a Small Space, Growing season, POTATO, soil, Tuber, Water. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.