It’s Almost Potato Planting Time

It’ll soon be tater planting time in Texas. Now is a good time to get a bed ready for spuds.

Potatoes are the earliest spring vegetable crop that we plant. According to local wisdom, potatoes should be planted on Presiden’t Day (February 20) in this part of Texas.

I’m a big proponent of no-till or minimal-till gardening. When you till the soil, you disturb the ecosystem of worms, algae, bacteria and other beneficial microorganisms in the soil.

Imagine if a tornado tore down your home in the spring. You rebuild your home, and then the following spring, another tornado tears down your new home. Now imagine this happening year after year. Eventually, you’d probably move somewhere with a lower risk of tornados. This is what happens to the soil ecosystem when we till year after year.

But sometimes a house is so dilapidated that it needs to be torn down and rebuilt. Other times, we don’t need a fancy house. We just need a duck blind, and it doesn’t matter if we tear it down at the end of the season. This is how I think about the potato patch.

I never plant potatoes in the same spot every year. Pests and diseases that affect potatoes tend to accumulate in the soil. So it’s good to move the potato patch around the garden every year. Plus, you won’t disturb the same soil year after year.

I’ve grown potatoes in raised beds, pots, and in the ground in rows. The later method is probably the easiest if you already have a garden. Potato plants need loose, fluffy soil to grow lots of big tubers that we love to eat. You can use a gas-powered tiller. But if you’re planting in an existing garden bed, it might be just as easy to use a forked spade or shovel to loosen the soil. I like to loosen the soil down to a foot deep for potatoes.

Now, you need some seed potatoes. Potato plants sprout from the “eyes” that form on potatoes. The potatoes sold at grocery stores are treated with products that inhibit the eyes from sprouting. Seed potatoes are just like the potatoes sold at grocery stores, but they are not treated. The eyes of seed potatoes readily sprout. You can purchase seed potatoes at many local garden centers and farm and ranch stores.

The three most common varieties that grow well around here are Kennebec, a white potato that’s used commercially for making potato chips; red pontiac, a red-skinned variety; and my personal favorite, Yukon gold, a thin-skinned potato with golden flesh. Most gardeners in Texas have the best results with red-skinned varieties. Red norland is one of the best varieties to grow anywhere in the southern U.S., but it is hard to find.

I think its a good idea to plant multiple varieties. If you plant one variety and harvest them all at one time, you’ll need a way to store them. Some varieties mature faster than others, which you can harvest periodically over an extended season. Moreover, some varieties are more susceptible to pests and diseases. Planting multiple varieties gives you a hedge against pests and diseases.

The late Ruth Stout, whom I consider to be one of the greatest experts on organic gardening, recommended planting whole seed potatoes. I’ve done this before and it works great. But you can cut whole seed potatoes into pieces and get more plants. Just make sure each piece is about two inches across in all directions and has at least one eye. If you cut seed potatoes into pieces, be sure to roll them in wood ashes and place them on a wire rack to dry for a few days. This allows the cuts to “callous” or “scab over.” If you plant freshly cut pieces, many of them will rot in the ground before sprouting.

Dig a trench down the center of the row six to eight inches deep. Place the seed potatoes or cut pieces into the trench spaced eight to 16 inches apart. If you plant more than one row, space the rows about three feet apart. If you plant cut pieces, you’ll need about 12 lbs. of seed potatoes for a 100-foot row. Purchase more if you plant whole seed potatoes.

Sprinkle a handful of organic fertilizer (such as Micro-Life Multi-Purpose or Medina Growin’ Green) in the trench around each of the seed potatoes or cut pieces. Fill the trench with soil and lightly pack it down.

You can water the trench if the soil is really dry, but I seldom bother. The potato pieces usually have enough moisture and energy for the plant to sprout without any initial watering. Plus, soggy soil can rot the seed potatoes before they sprout.

They should sprout in a week or two. When the young plants are a few inches tall, cover the row with a mound of compost or straw. If you use straw or hay, be sure it was not sprayed with herbicide when it was growing. If you don’t know whether it was sprayed, use compost instead. Residual herbicide will kill your potato plants. If you don’t have

See enough compost or straw, you can mound dirt on top of the plants. Gardeners call this process “hilling” the potatoes. Potato plants tend to grow tubers along the main stem. Hilling with compost, straw or dirt helps the plant to grow more tubers.

You can also hill the plants anytime there is a danger of frost. The mound will protect the plants from freezing temperatures that would otherwise kill it. You don’t have to remove the mound once the danger of frost has passed; the plant will grow foliage up through it to reach light.

Potato plants are in the Solanaceae family and are closely related to tomatoes. The plants look very similar to tomato plants as well. By the time the potato plants begin to flower, there will be small “new” potatoes growing under the soil. If you wish, you can lightly brush away the soil to harvest a few new potatoes from each plant at this point.

I usually spray the foliage with a mix of liquid seaweed and molasses every two weeks during the growing season. I find this combination to be a great preventative for diseases. It also helps the plants deal with the stress of extreme temperature swings that we sometimes get in the spring. I mix two ounces of liquid seaweed and two ounces of molasses with a gallon of water and apply using a pumpup sprayer. You can also add an ounce or two of liquid fertilizer to the mix every time you apply.

The plants are ready for a full harvest as soon as the foliage begins to turn brown, about 90 to 120 days after planting. That usually places the harvest time in late May or early June.

To harvest, use a forked spade or shovel to turn up the soil around and under the plant. Begin spading about two feet away from the center of the plant so you don’t slice through any potatoes in the soil. Gently lift the soil. Get on your knees and search through the loose soil for the potatoes. Most of the time, my plants produce two to five large potatoes and many smaller ones up to the size of a golf ball.

We always eat the smaller ones first, because they taste better and they don’t last as long in storage. I almost always miss a few potatoes at harvest time. They end up in the soil and often volunteer in the fall. Every once in a while, I’m able to harvest some of these volunteer potatoes in November and December. You don’t have to harvest all the potatoes at one time, either. They will stay good in the soil for many weeks without rotting.

Feb. 20 will be here before we know it. Potatoes are one of the easiest and tastiest vegetables to grow in the garden. If you’ve been thinking about growing a garden this year, get started now by making a bed for some potatoes. If you don’t have a garden, try growing some in big pots or a flower bed.