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Learning how to grow potatoes in your backyard vegetable garden is easy and a huge asset to the garden. Potatoes can be simple to store for use for months, and they’re not complicated to grow.

This post for learning how to grow potatoes are home applies to almost all types of potatoes, except sweet potatoes. They’re a bit different, and should be grown starting in late summer. 

Why grow potatoes?

Potatoes, taters, spuds, tots… well, maybe not that last one. Knowing how to grow potatoes in your backyard garden is one of the first lessons I learned as a gardener. And since potatoes are easy to grow and require no complicated trellises or indoor seed starting, they’re the perfect crop for beginner gardeners.

Potatoes can also be stored after harvest in a cool and dry place for use months afterwards. There aren’t many garden vegetables that can boast that easy kind of storage.

How to Grow Potatoes

Potatoes are easy to grow in a home garden and one plant will produce a multitude of potatoes. (Take it from me, I know.) All varieties of spuds are easy to grow and can be grown in containers or raised beds. Here are some tips to help you know how to grow potatoes. Follow these and you’re almost guaranteed an abundant harvest this year!

Where to grow potatoes

This isn’t just for realtors, y’all. While the actual potatoes grow beneath the soil, there is a green plant (a vine for sweet potatoes) that grows above the soil which needs plenty of sunlight. Select a location that is in full sun (6+ hours per day) for best results. Not sure which areas of your yard get the best sun? Try making a Sun Map of your yard, and you’ll always know the best place to grow full sun, low sun, and shade loving plants. 

Growing potatoes in containers

Potatoes can be successfully grown in traditional in-ground gardens, in buckets, stacks of tires (though I have reservations about what’s in those tires), special grow bags, barrels, raised beds, or any type of container that can hold soil and is at least 1 foot deep. Get creative when you consider how to grow potatoes.

For the past several years, I have grown mine in containers instead of directly in my raised beds. This saves me space in the raised beds for plants that don’t do as well in containers. 

In fact, there are special bags just for growing potatoes, so they can be harvested as the plant grows. Amazing! I haven’t tried them yet, but my neighbor has enjoyed using grow bags for her tomato plants. If you’ve used them, comment below and let me know what you thought about them. 

Starting potato plants

Seed Potatoes

The type of potatoes you use for planting are called seed potatoes. While I have had some friends who have had success using potatoes from their grocery store bagged variety, I like to head to our downtown hardware store and see the different varieties available there.

Some varieties purchased at your local grocery store have been treated with growth retardant to prevent them from sprouting. (If you want to try those from the grocery store, stick with an organic variety, since they shouldn’t have been treated.)

For your other seed potatoes, start with organic, certified disease-free seed potatoes purchased from a garden supply center or seed catalog. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is one of my favorite places to purchase seeds, and they have a great variety!

How to cut and cure potatoes

Seed potatoes need to be cut and dried prior to planting. When you pick out your seed potatoes, choose the ones that have the most eyes. Eyes equal plants. Cut large tubers into 3-4 pieces, making sure each piece has at least 1 ‘eye’ (sprout).  Any tubers that are smaller than a golf ball can be left whole.

Place cut pieces in a single layer in the sun so they can cure. Or if the weather isn’t cooperating, leave cut potatoes on a paper towel on your kitchen counter for a few days. The cut sides develop a hard covering called a ‘callous’ during the curing process and will prevent the seed tuber from rotting after planting. This is important. Nobody has time for rotting tubers in the ground, am I right?

Preparing soil for potatoes

Potatoes grow best in loose, well-draining soil. A mixture of 50 percent soil and 50 percent compost is ideal to provide drainage, nutrition, and prevent soil compaction for growing spuds. My DIY Potting soil is perfect for in-ground gardens, raised beds, or any type of container you may be using. The potatoes need the loose soil for growing those new spuds!

How to plant potatoes

Plant potatoes 3 weeks prior to last predicted frost date for your area. Potatoes need a bit of cool weather to grow well, since they don’t produce as well in the sweltering days of summer. To plant your potatoes, dig a hole 6 inches deep and place 1 seed potato cut side down (eyes facing upward) into hole. Gently cover tuber and water well.

Space planting holes 2 feet apart. If you’re working with a container, don’t fill it all the way up. Instead make sure your container has 6-8 inches of space at the top after the tuber has been planted. This will give you room to “hill” your potato plant as it grows. You can also make potato towers, like Garden Know How, for a larger harvest. 

Hilling potatoes

Developing spuds must be protected from sunlight and ‘hilling’ accomplishes this and promotes a larger harvest. When the plant is 8 inches tall, create a 4 inch hill around it by raking loose soil around it. You can also top that off with 2 inches of straw or leaves.

It’s important to hill to protect those topmost potatoes from  being exposed to sunlight. If you’ve ever seen green potatoes, then those are spuds that broke through and were exposed to sunlight too soon. Don’t eat green potatoes. 

Repeat the hilling process again when plant grows another 8 inches.

How to harvest potatoes

Small, new potatoes can be harvested when the plant flowers. To dig up the plant and potatoes in one large harvest, wait until plants die for large, mature potatoes.

Harvesting new potatoes is a great way to enjoy some of your labor while the plant is still growing. My grandmother would always do this so we could have some new potatoes in with a pot of fresh green beans. Delicious!

How to store potatoes

For storing long term, allow your potato plants to completely die back before digging up the spuds. It’s totally fine to dig up some of the potatoes to eat before this point though. Once your plants have died back and the taters are all out of the ground, lay them out to dry out the skins. 

For long term storage, the potatoes will need to be cured. This requires a few weeks in a dark, moderate temperature environment (65 degrees), with higher humidity if possible. We place our potatoes in paper bags for this process as well. The curing should thicken up the skins so the potatoes will store for a longer period of time. After a few weeks in the dark, humid environment, potatoes should be ready for long term storage in a cool, dark place. 

Thicker skinned varieties of potatoes, such as russets, will be able to store for longer than thinned skinned varieties like red potatoes. So if you’re looking for long term storage, select a hardier variety. 

Common Pests of potatoes

The Colorado potato beetle is one of the most common pests that likes to destroy your potato plants. They arrive in the summer and lay yellow eggs on the underside of leaves of your potato plants. The striped backs of adults give them a very distinctive look, so be on the look out. 

How to handle potato beetles:

Use these quick tips, or see my full post about how to prevent and control potato beetles without pesticides.

• For small gardens, seek and destroy is the best option. If you see a beetle, pick it up and put it in a jar of soapy water. Use a wet cloth to wipe the eggs off of the backs of leaves. 
• Be sure to check the backs of all leaves. A female can lay an enormous amount of eggs in her lifetime… who has time for that?! 
• Use Bacillus thuringiensis var. tenebrionis (BT), a naturally occurring bacterial disease. This will only be effective for the young larvae, not adult bugs. It’s the same spray I use to keep cabbage worms from destroying my brassicas. 
• Check out my book Natural Pest Control for the Home Garden for a complete guide on how to handle pests in the garden without harsh pesticides. 

And that’s it! All you need to know from start to harvest on how to grow potatoes. I can’t wait to see what kind of harvest you will yield and what type of potatoes are your favorites! Share below and tips you have and happy gardening!