Potato Gardening

Potato gardening ,just might keep you interested for a long, long time. If you’re the kind of gardener who likes to try something new every year.

Some accounts say there are more than 600 different varieties of potato. Others claim to list closer to 3,000 individual varieties. Either way, plant a different potato crop every year .You can have green potato , sweet potatoes or any types that you can think of and you’ll need descendants for dozens of generations to come to finish off the list you got started.

Growing potatoes is practiced almost everywhere people eat. This means it’s pretty likely you’ll be successful at growing potatoes in container , in pots, waters too, no matter where you garden.

Despite its vast growing range, all potatoes have a few requirements that are shared by them all.

All potatoes need a warm growing season three or four months long and free of frost. They don’t like the frost but they don’t like the heat either so it’s important to grow them in the season that’s best for them.

If you are gardening potato in cooler northern climates, plant your potatoes so they’ll grow throughout the warm summer months and plan to harvest about the time the first frost or two settles over the garden.

If you live in a warmer southern climate, do your garden potatoes after the summer heat dies down and plant them so they can be harvested before the summer heat returns.

Many store-bought potatoes, those gotten from the grocery store, have been treated to prevent sprouting, making them last longer on store shelves. These potatoes are thought to make poor quality harvests.

Look instead for potatoes from a garden center that are designated as seed potatoes. They won’t actually produce seeds as such but they will sprout little “eyes” all over the potato. When this happens, cut the potato into as many “seed pieces” as there are eyes and plant these pieces as you would other kinds of seeds.

Soil:

Potato gardening is most productive in soil that is fertile with a high amount of organic matter that drains well. Soil pH level is best between 5.0 and 5.5.

How to Plant:

Plant your seed potatoes about four inches deep and about 12 to 18 inches apart in an area that gets full sun. Keep the area free of weeds and evenly moist throughout the growing season.

Eventually your efforts for gardening potato will produce weak-stemmed plants with hairy leaves that resemble those of its botanical cousin, the tomato. Before long, a white or purple star-shaped flower blossom will open and you’ll know all is well underground.

When to Harvest your potatoes

The blooming of the potato flower signals impending harvest time for your potato garden. You can begin digging up your fresh new potatoes at this time or you can wait a little while longer, till the plant’s leaves begin to turn yellow. For the most mature potatoes possible, dig up your new crop about two weeks after the potatoes vine has died back

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