How to Grow Potatoes: The Complete Guide from Seed Potato to Harvest

How to grow potatoes is easy to learn, and potatoes are the treasure hunt of the vegetable garden. Nothing compares to pushing a garden fork into the soil and turning up a cluster of clean, freshly grown potatoes.

How to grow potatoes: freshly dug potatoes in the garden.

Growing your own potatoes also opens up a world of varieties you'll never find at the store: fingerlings, red and purple heirlooms, waxy salad potatoes, and buttery yellow kinds.

This guide covers everything from choosing seed potatoes to curing and storing your harvest. It works whether you have a big in-ground garden, a few raised beds, or just a sunny patio with room for a grow bag or two.

Potatoes are also one of the most productive crops a home gardener can grow. According to the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, a pound of seed potatoes can produce ten pounds or more of potatoes in good conditions.

Source: University of Maine Cooperative Extension - Growing Potatoes in the Home Garden

Choosing Potato Varieties

Fresh potatoes harvested from the garden.

When you learn how to grow potatoes at home, you can choose from hundreds of varieties, with very different flavors, textures, and colors. Commercial growers raise just a handful, chosen for high yields and long shelf life.

Potatoes are sorted by how long they take to mature. This matters most in short-season northern gardens, where late varieties may not finish before frost.

Early-season potatoes take about 70 to 90 days. They give the first new potatoes of summer and suit northern gardens, containers, and grow bags. Red Norland, Yukon Gold, and Irish Cobbler are good choices.

Mid-season potatoes take about 90 to 110 days and offer the widest choice. Red Pontiac, Kennebec, and Purple Majesty are reliable and full of flavor.

Late-season potatoes take about 110 to 130 days. They give the biggest yields and the best keepers for winter storage. Russet Burbank, the classic baking potato, and German Butterball are favorites if your season is long enough.

Seed Potatoes: What They Are and Why They Matter

Seed potatoes placed in a shallow trench for planting.

Seed potatoes are not seeds. They are small potatoes, or pieces of potatoes, grown and certified free of the diseases that affect the potato family. Buy them from a garden center or seed company each spring.

Grocery store potatoes are usually treated with a sprout inhibitor, so they sprout poorly and can bring disease into your garden. The inhibitor does wear off in time, which is why the potatoes in my cupboard always seem to sprout anyway! Still, certified seed potatoes are inexpensive and the reliable way to start.

I buy the smallest seed potatoes I can find, about the size of an egg, so I can plant them whole. There's no cutting and no waiting for the pieces to dry.

To cut larger seed potatoes, make pieces with one or two eyes each (the small dimples where sprouts grow). Let the cut pieces dry and form a skin for a day or two before planting, so they don't rot in the ground.

For a head start, "chit" your seed potatoes. Set them in an egg carton or shallow tray with most of the eyes facing up, in a cool, bright room out of direct sun, for three to four weeks before planting. Short, sturdy green sprouts will form, and the plants come up faster once planted.

When and Where to Plant Potatoes

Sprouting seed potatoes being planted in the vegetable garden.

Potatoes are a cool-season crop. Plant seed potatoes two to four weeks before your last spring frost, once the soil has warmed to at least 45°F. In most of the US that means March in the South, April in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, and May in the North. Use our free zone finder to look up your last frost date.

The young plants are tender, though. If frost is forecast after the sprouts are up, cover them overnight with a frost blanket, a thick layer of straw, or newspaper, and uncover them in the morning. Move containers into a garage or shed for the night.

Choose a spot in full sun, six to eight hours a day, with good air flow and good drainage. Avoid low spots where cold air and water collect.

Rotate your potato bed every year. Don't plant potatoes where potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, or eggplant grew in the last two or three years. They are all in the nightshade family and share the same soil diseases.

Potato planting calendar by region

Soil Preparation for How to Grow Potatoes

"Hilling" potato plants after they start growing.

Potatoes form underground, so they need loose, deep soil to grow large and smooth. In heavy clay or rocky ground they come out small and misshapen.

Dig or till the bed at least 12 inches deep, remove stones, and work in two to three inches of well-aged compost. Don't use fresh manure. It pushes leafy growth instead of potatoes and makes scab more likely.

Potatoes like slightly acid soil, with a pH of about 5.0 to 6.5. That acidity helps prevent common scab, the rough, corky patches on potato skins. Don't add lime to a potato bed.

If your native soil is heavy or poorly drained, grow potatoes in a raised bed filled with loose soil and compost, or in grow bags (see the container section below).

Potato plants being grown in a bag.

How to Plant Potatoes

Potato plant blossoms.

Dig a trench or holes four to six inches deep. Set the seed potatoes in the bottom with the sprouts or eyes facing up.

Space them 12 inches apart for early varieties and 15 inches apart for larger late varieties. Leave two to three feet between rows, so you have room to hill soil around the plants later.

Cover the seed potatoes with three to four inches of soil. Don't bury them deeper at first. Planting too deep slows the sprouts, and the extra soil comes later, when you hill.

Water once to settle the soil, then water only if the soil turns dry until the shoots appear. Potatoes like cool, moist soil, not wet. Sprouts usually show in two to four weeks, faster in warm soil.

Hilling Potatoes

"Hilling" potato plants as they grow taller.

If you remember one thing about how to grow potatoes, make it hilling.

Hilling means drawing soil up around the stems as the plants grow. It is the one job that sets potatoes apart from other vegetables, and it matters for two reasons.

More potatoes: potatoes form on underground stems. The more stem you bury, the more of those stems form, and the more potatoes you dig.

No green potatoes: potatoes that see daylight turn green and develop solanine, a bitter, mildly toxic compound. Keeping them covered prevents it.

Start hilling when the plants are 8 to 10 inches tall. Use a hoe to pull soil up around each plant, leaving the top four to six inches of leaves showing. Repeat every two to three weeks until the hills are 8 to 12 inches high or the plants begin to flower.

Straw works well for the top layers. It's lighter than soil, holds moisture, and makes harvest easier. In containers and grow bags you "hill" by adding more soil as the plants grow.

Small potato plant beginning to grow in the vegetable garden.

Watering and Feeding Potatoes

Watering the vegetable garden.

Steady moisture is the secret to smooth, well-shaped potatoes. Potatoes need about one to two inches of water a week, from rain or the hose.

The most important time is from flowering on, when the tubers are forming and growing. A dry spell then, followed by a heavy soaking, causes hollow centers, cracks, and knobby potatoes. Water deeply and evenly, and spread straw over the hills to keep the soil moist. In hot weather, containers may need water every day.

Feed lightly. Compost worked in at planting is enough for most gardens. You can side-dress with a balanced fertilizer when the plants are about eight inches tall. Once they flower, stop. Too much nitrogen makes big leafy tops and fewer potatoes.

When the tops begin to yellow and die back, cut back on water. This helps the skins firm up for harvest.

How to Grow Potatoes
in Containers, Grow Bags, and Straw

Example of growing potatoes in containers.

No garden bed? Potatoes grow beautifully in containers on a patio, porch, or balcony, and children love the harvest.

Choose a container that holds at least 10 gallons; 15 to 20 is better. Fabric grow bags, half barrels, and clean plastic trash cans all work. Drill drainage holes in the bottom of a trash can, and pick one on wheels if you'd like to move it around.

How to grow potatoes in grow bags and containers: put six inches of potting mix and compost in the bottom, set two or three seed potatoes on top, and cover them with four inches of mix. Each time the plants grow another six to eight inches, add more mix or straw, leaving the top four to six inches of leaves showing, until the container is nearly full. Early and mid-season varieties such as Yukon Gold, Red Norland, and fingerlings do best in containers.

Growing potatoes in straw: keep adding straw as the plants grow, then pull it back at harvest.

How to grow potatoes in straw: loosen the soil, lay the seed potatoes on the surface, and cover them with about six inches of loose straw. As the shoots come through, keep adding straw around the stems. You can slip your hand under the straw to steal a few new potatoes, and at harvest you simply pull the straw back. No digging, and no potatoes cut by the fork!

Old tires were once popular for this, but many extension services now advise against growing food in tires, since they can leach zinc and other chemicals into the soil. A grow bag or wire cage lined with straw is a safer choice.

Containers dry out fast, so check them daily in hot weather. At harvest, tip the container onto a tarp and sort through the soil for your potatoes. At the end of the season, scrub containers with a 1:10 bleach-and-water solution so they're clean for next year.

How to grow potatoes in grow bags: step by step

Common Problems When Growing Potatoes

Variety of potatoes from the garden.

Most potato problems can be prevented once you know what causes them.

Blight is the most serious. Late blight, the disease behind the Irish Potato Famine, is caused by a water mold, not a true fungus. It makes dark, water-soaked patches on the leaves and spreads fast in cool, wet weather. Early blight makes brown spots with rings like a target. To prevent both, grow resistant varieties such as Kennebec, Elba, or Defender, rotate your beds, space plants for good air flow, and water at the base, not over the leaves. If blight appears, pull and throw away (don't compost) the affected plants. A copper spray can slow its spread.

Common scab causes rough, corky patches on the skin. The potatoes are still fine to eat once peeled. Keep the soil slightly acid and evenly moist, and skip the lime and fresh manure.

Colorado potato beetles are the worst insect pest in much of the US. The striped adults and their red-orange larvae can strip a plant fast. Hand-pick them into a jar of soapy water, and crush the orange egg clusters under the leaves. Row cover keeps them off young plants, and spinosad is an organic spray for heavy infestations.

How to Harvest Potatoes

Harvesting potatoes carefully so not to damage them.

There are two potato harvests: new potatoes in early summer, and mature potatoes later on.

New potatoes are small, tender potatoes with thin skins and a sweet flavor. They are ready about two to three weeks after the plants bloom. Gently push the soil (or straw) aside with your hand, take a few from the edge of each hill, and cover the rest so they keep growing. New potatoes don't keep, so enjoy them within a few days.

Mature potatoes are ready when the tops turn yellow and die back. Stop watering, then wait two to three weeks before digging. The skins thicken in the ground during that time, which helps the potatoes keep in storage.

Dig on a dry day. Pull the dead vines and add them to the compost pile, unless they had blight. Potatoes spread out from the plant, so push your garden fork into the soil about a foot from the center of the row and lift gently toward the plant. Spearing them is easy, and a damaged potato will rot in storage, so eat any cut or bruised ones first.

Let the potatoes dry on the soil for an hour or two, then move them out of the sun. Even a few days of light will turn them green. Pick up every last one, or they'll sprout as volunteers next spring.

Early varieties don't store long, so dig only what you need for the kitchen. Leave the late varieties for September or October and winter storage.

Curing and Storing Potatoes After Harvest

Freshly harvested potatoes drying in the garden.

Curing toughens the skins and heals small nicks from digging, so your potatoes keep for months. Don't wash them first. Just brush off loose soil and spread them out in a single layer in a dark, airy place at 50 to 60°F, such as a garage, basement, or shed, for about two weeks.

After curing, store potatoes somewhere dark, cool, and slightly humid. About 40 to 45°F is ideal. A root cellar is perfect, and a cool basement or an unheated (but frost-free) garage works well too. Use baskets, burlap sacks, or open mesh bags so air can move around them.

Keep potatoes out of the refrigerator. Below about 40°F, the starch turns to sugar, and they taste sweet and brown too fast when cooked. Keep them away from light, which turns them green, and away from apples and onions, which make them sprout sooner.

Check stored potatoes every few weeks and take out any that turn soft or start to rot, before they spoil their neighbors. Late varieties like Kennebec, Russet Burbank, and Red Pontiac keep the longest, often into early spring.

Frequently Asked Questions About How to Grow Potatoes

1. How long does it take to grow potatoes?

Early varieties are ready in about 70 to 90 days from planting, mid-season varieties in 90 to 110 days, and late varieties in 110 to 130 days. You can dig a few new potatoes about two to three weeks after the plants bloom.

2. How many potatoes does one plant produce?

A healthy plant usually gives two to five pounds of potatoes, and sometimes more with good hilling and steady watering. Or think of it this way: a pound of seed potatoes can grow ten pounds or more.

3. Can I eat green potatoes?

Cut away small green spots generously; the rest of the potato is fine. Throw away potatoes that are green all over, or that taste bitter. Hilling well and storing potatoes in the dark prevents greening.

4. Can I save my own seed potatoes?

Yes. Save healthy, medium-sized potatoes from disease-free plants, store them as usual, and plant them the next spring. Diseases can build up over the years, though, so start fresh with certified seed potatoes every few seasons.

5. Is it better to grow potatoes in raised beds or in the ground?

Raised beds and grow bags are easier for most home gardens. The loose soil grows smooth potatoes, drains well, and makes hilling and digging simple. In-ground beds work well too, if your soil is loose and deep.

6. How to grow potatoes in a small space?

Use a 15- to 20-gallon grow bag or container on a sunny patio or balcony, and plant an early or mid-season variety. See the containers, grow bags, and straw section above.

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