How to Plant Potatoes: A Simple Guide for Gardeners

Have you ever considered growing potatoes in your backyard? Whether you're new to gardening or an experienced gardener, this easy-to-follow guide will show you how to plant potatoes for consistently great yields.

From choosing the right seed potatoes to amending the soil, how deep to plant, and how long before harvest, we're covering it all here.

Why I Love Growing Potatoes

Rich in fiber and potassium and cooked in a myriad of mouth-watering ways, you really can't go wrong with potatoes. The way people consume them in such mass quantities makes it seem funny that everyone isn't growing potatoes. 

My goal is to help you grow amazing produce right at home, which is why I’ve created growing guides that eliminate the guesswork, including:

• How to Grow Tomatoes

• How to Grow Peppers

• How to Grow Melons

• How to Grow Cucumbers

• How to Grow Eggplant

We want you to experience success in the garden, and growing potatoes can come with a lot of trial and error. But it doesn't have to!

That’s why I’m covering all the ins and outs of how to plant them so you can shorten your learning curve and enjoy a successful harvest.

Let’s get started!

Choosing Seed Potatoes

Choosing the right seed potatoes is the first step for a good potato harvest. Look for actual seed potatoes because they have not been sprayed with a sprout inhibitor. These will develop eyes much faster. The problem with using regular store-bought potatoes is that they likely have been sprayed and may not grow sprouts (great for the grocery store shelf, not for the garden). 

You can purchase seed potatoes from MIgardener.com and Jung Seed or find them in local stores and at farmers' markets. Or, check out our video on how to make your own seed potatoes.

Favorite Potato Varieties

There are many potato varieties with different tastes and textures. Here are some of my favorites:

When to Plant Potatoes

The best time to plant potatoes depends on your location and climate. Plant potatoes two to three weeks before the last frost. This allows young plants to grow in cool weather without the threat of damage from frost.

In warmer climates, you can plant from January to March. In cooler climates, wait until April through June to allow the soil to warm up for sprouting. You can find your plant hardiness zone here and your average last frost date here for a better idea of when to plant.

Preparing the Soil for Potato Plants

Don’t underestimate the importance of well-prepared soil. Potatoes prefer acidic soil and are heavy feeders, meaning they pull a lot of nutrients, so properly amend your soil to promote the best yields.

Amending the Soil pH

Potatoes like acidic soil that few other plants enjoy. For this reason, I plant potatoes in full beds or together in an area of the garden without other plants. It is tempting to diversify your bed, but it is not worth having the other plants struggle along just for the sake of diversification.

The best pH for growing potatoes is 5.0 to 5.5. There are a couple of methodologies that I use to get the soil pH down that low:

• Powdered Sulfur - Most soils require between 17 and 28 lbs of sulfur per 500 sq feet to reduce the pH by .5 units. If your soil pH needs to be reduced by 0.5 units, one-half pound of sulfur should be applied every 4 feet and incorporated to a depth of 6 to 8 inches.

• Peat Moss - I only use peat moss as an amendment every 2 to 3 years because it takes a long time to break down. Add two or three inches of peat moss to the top and gently incorporate into the soil.

Pro-Tip: A common mistake gardeners make is not doing a soil pH test before amending the soil. Make sure to adjust the soil pH based on what your soil really needs, not what someone else recommends. Unnecessarily altering soil pH can throw the whole garden out of whack. Take the guesswork out by testing your soil with the Rapitest Soil Tester.

Amending the Soil for Fertility

Whatever you remove from the garden as plant matter, you need to put it back in as compost and amendments. My thinking is that you should amend with at least 10% of the amount of soil.

I like to use a process called double digging to incorporate compost into the original soil. Double digging improves soil aeration, allows better root development and water penetration, and makes the soil easier to plant in.

It is also okay to simply layer the compost on top, but that creates defined layers instead of loose, well-amended soil.

Double digging is easy. Simply spread your compost evenly across the top of the original soil, push your shovel or broad fork into the soil about 4” deep, wiggle it around to loosen the soil and then pull it out.

Don’t work the soil aggressively, and don’t flip the soil. Repeat this process across your garden bed.

Supplies Needed

• Seed Potatoes - Seed potatoes are true, unsprayed, unadulterated potatoes used for planting. You can even grow and save your own seed potatoes year after year!

• Shovel - You will need a shovel for digging your trenches and backfilling after you’ve planted.

• Fertilizer - Potatoes are heavy feeders, so they will benefit from a good, all-purpose fertilizer. Trifecta+ contains fast-acting, slow-release nutrients, over 70 trace mineral micronutrients, and beneficial bacteria and fungi to support your plants.

• Alfalfa Pellets - This is my secret weapon for growing great potatoes. Alfalfa pellets are a really inexpensive product that is high in nitrogen and contains a lot of organic matter to help break down and loosen soil. Plus, they will attract a lot of worms. You can usually find alfalfa pellets in the animal feed section of your local farm supply store.

How to Plant Potatoes

1. Choose a location that gets at least 6 hours of full sun per day. Before you plant, make sure you have properly amended the soil with compost and corrected the pH.

2. Space rows out approximately every 2 feet in the area you will be planting.

3. Dig trenches 6 to 8 inches deep along the rows. Pro-Tip: You may have heard misinformation that you will get more potatoes from burying the seed potatoes even deeper or hilling them up. That is simply not true. Stick to the 6 to 8-inch planting depth.

4. Fertilize the soil within each trench with Trifecta+ or another all-purpose fertilizer.

5. Sprinkle alfalfa pellets in each trench.

6. Place seed potatoes in the trenches at 10-inch intervals. Pro-Tip : It is really important to make sure that you don’t crowd potatoes. While you can grow potatoes fairly crowded, adequate spacing allows the root system to move throughout the soil much better, resulting in bigger yields.

7. Make sure the eyes of the seed potatoes are facing up (see the photo above; I’m pointing at one of the eyes of the potato). Facing the eyes upwards causes the roots to spread out laterally instead of going down. Pro-Tip : If you don’t have eyes forming on your potatoes yet, place the seed potatoes inside a paper bag and place the bag in a dark, humid location. This will speed up the formation of eyes.

8. Backfill the trenches to cover up the potatoes.

9. Water in the potatoes. You should start to see the potato plants popping up out of the soil in 2 to 3 weeks.

It is that simple. When you plant potatoes this way, they will grow in a thick mat, and the foliage will protect the soil from the sun.

When to Harvest Potatoes

On average, potatoes mature for 90-100 days before they’re ready to harvest. The time of maturity will vary with each variety.

You'll know when it's time to harvest when the potato plants die back. If your goal is long-term storage, wait until the tubers are fully mature before harvesting.

Watch these videos for more information on harvesting potatoes and curing potatoes for storage.