If your potatoes resemble a wild forest more than a staple pantry fodder, then you have discovered seed potatoes.
The good news: they don’t have to be chucked into the compost or turned into Mr Potato Heads (although the latter is a bit of fun for kids and confuses the cat). You can plant them and grow more.
Well, that’s the theory.
If all goes to plan our household will be having new potatoes for Christmas lunch. Never having grown potatoes before, it all sounded too good to miss the opportunity to find out.
We’d already rediscovered the different options as to where to plant potatoes and we’d settled on a somewhat ‘original’ design (aka morph between trench-and-container) at one end of the vege patch, for no reason other than it sounded like a good plan at the time.
What are seed potatoes?
When the ‘eyes’ of the potato start to sprout, they are still edible but better suited as seed potatoes. They are likely to do this as they get a bit older, or not stored in complete darkness.
‘Eyes’ can be as modest as a raised bump on the potato skin the size of your little fingernail, as brazen as a single 6-inch sprout on steroids, or a tangled mess of them.
How do you prepare seed potatoes to plant?
You can plant the potato whole (preferred) or cut the potato into chunks so the ‘eye’ can face upwards. They will literally be planted face up. If there are several eyes on the potato, you can cut them into multiple chunks. If you are taking the ‘cut into pieces’ approach, allow the cut ends to dry first otherwise they will rot in the ground (which is not the idea). Once ready to plant, the potato chunks will need to be covered in 2-3 inches of soil in a well drained area of the garden.
Does it matter what potatoes you use?
We are soon to find out! We’ve experimented a little. We’ve planted a row of Agria ‘supermarket’ potatoes, and a row of Nadine ‘plant shop’ potatoes. Apparently the latter have been purity tested so are not so prone to disease.
Potato blight is a fungal disease identified by blotched leaves, rotting stems and eventually decimating the crop. We hope note to witness this, but will keep you posted on progress.
Then what do you do?
You wait patiently for green leafy tops to appear. Cover the majority of those greens with soil, exposing just enough for them to keep growing. You will find yourself with a mound of dirt at the end, or if you are digging the ditch approach, they’ll be at soil level. Green tops are prone to frost. While it isn’t the end of your crop if they do die off (as they will regrow again) protect the green tops with frost cloth. Potatoes therefore can be grown year-round.
Get your hands dirty. Rediscover growing things in your own backyard.
