To ensure that you have the best success growing potatoes start with high quality seed potatoes. These can either be purchased seed potatoes or some that you saved from the previous year’s garden.
Each potato has the potential to grow into several plants. In order to take advantage of this, cut the potato into chunks with each chunk having one or two eyes. These eyes will be the part that grows into the new potato plant.
It is best to cut the potatoes and then let them dry or callous some before planting them.
Since this is the first year for our raised bed at our new farm, I decided not to fill the potato box all the way full with soil, compost and peat moss prior to planting our potatoes. This will allow me to simply add more compost and mulch around the growing potatoes during the growing season without having to pull up dirt in a hill around them. As your potatoes grow, you will want to keep covering more and more of the plant with dirt or mulch as this is how to encourage more tuber growth. (Making sure to leave the top of the plant exposed above the dirt or mulch so that it can continue to grow.)
We have planted our potatoes and are now waiting for them to sprout. I planted them a little earlier than I usually do, because I wanted to have them in before baby Isaiah arrived. So far there aren’t any little potatoes peaking through the dirt, but hopefully they will soon.
Blessings,
Jennifer
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I never even thought of planting potatoes until this year! But I love your method, Jennifer. Do you ever have trouble with them getting too damp at the bottom?
Thank you for linking up!
I wouldn’t recommend using regular plastic because that will hold the moisture in the raised bed. I use the weed barrier that allows water to drain through. I’ve always gotten along well with raised beds in the past.