Growing potatoes is heaps of fun and so easy! We’re kicking ourselves for not planting them earlier (years earlier) and rediscovering the anticipation of home-grown new potatoes for Christmas Day.
First things first, just how DO you grow them? Where can you plant potatoes?
Given that the humble potato is a root vegetable that grows ground-up you need to find an appropriate spot in the garden, or deck for that matter.
For a bit of background as to how these little suckers grow, here’s our 101 on the Spud Growing Cycle:
- As shoots grow from beneath the ground a green, leafy plant will be exposed on the surface. The stem grows tall and potato bulbs form along the shallow root formation. The bulbs grow bigger ‘where they grow’ rather than push downwards into the soil.
- Therefore as the stem of the plant grows taller, cover its base with soil. This is known as ‘hilling’ and ensures that the potatoes can grow beneath the soil in darkness. If potatoes are exposed to the light whilst growing their skin turns green, which is not good eating (and will probably make you sick if eaten).
So, the ability to have variable soil depth is important.
Basically there are two options: dig a ditch into your garden for depth, or go for the ‘bottoms-up’ approach, start at ground level and build up.
The vertical growing approach
We’ve seen potatoes grown in blue recycle bins (the over-sized plastic tubs with the perfect drainage hole at the bottom), within old car tyre stacks, or more elaborate garden bags bought from the plant centre. We’ve even created a wooden Potato Stacker for a magazine.
The idea is that you needn’t dig a hole. If you don’t have a garden, or do but the top soil isn’t deep enough to dig a deep trench, this is for you.
You literally plant the potato at ground level, and when the plant starts growing one just layers the soil on top of it. Layers of soil means that the pile grows higher, so stacks of tyres and other paraphernalia are there to contain the soil tower from from tumbling down. When it comes to harvesting, rather than dig one just dismantles the pile.
This suits apartment dwellers with a deck, or small property with an outside courtyard but not much soil. You can buy a bag of potato-growing mix, and you are sorted.
The ditch
This is the more traditional approach. Great for those with an existing garden and plenty of top soil. Here you dig a 6-10inch deep trench, plant your potatoes, then cover and ‘hill’ soil up and around the plants over time so it eventually resembles a mini-mountain range.
This suits large allotments or garden spaces.
Determined to grow more than just a modest potato plant or two, yet not wanting them to take over the valuable vege patch real estate, we decided to morph the two (aka ‘the vertical ditch’). With no tried and true reasoning whatsoever, it seemed like a good idea to us!
We dug two narrow ditches and plonked a wooden frame to sit on top of the soil (acting as a ‘container’ of sorts). Who knows if it comes in handy. Time will tell. As potato crops should be rotated around the garden each season (not sown in the same place each year) the wooden frame would be handy going forward in areas of the garden where the soil is shallow.
SPUDS LOVE RICH SOIL. Sorry to shout, but it’s really important that the soil is fertilised (whether worm wee, sheep pellets or your own compost). Potatoes suck all the goodness from the ground so you’ll need to replenish it.
Next step — preparing and planting potatoes. Rediscover home-grown spuds.
