How to Prepare Seed Potatoes for Planting?

by Laura
(Lubbock TX)

If I could ask...what kind of potatoes did you use in your potato container garden? Can you explain to me the process of how you got the potatoes eyes to grow? How big should I cut the seed potatoes?

ANSWER:

Buy "seed potatoes" from your local garden center. I try to find the smallest seed potatoes so that I don't have to deal with cutting them into sections. I just plant the small whole seed
potato.

If you buy large seed potatoes, you will want to cut them into sections with one or two "eyes" in each section, let the sections dry and form a skin, and dust them with sulfur powder to help prevent rotting. Then you store the pieces in a paper bag until little sprouts start to grow out of the potato "eyes". When the sprouts are about 1/4" to 1/2" long, you can plant the potato piece in the ground.

This seems like a lot of trouble to me, when you can just by a small seed potato and plant it whole!