Growing Potato

Solanum tuberosum : Solanaceae / the nightshade family

Jan F M A M J J A S O N Dec
      P P              

(Best months for growing Potato in USA - Zone 5a regions)

  • P = Plant seed potatoes
  • Plant tuber. Best planted at soil temperatures between 10°C and 30°C. (Show °F/in)
  • Space plants: 30 - 40 cm apart
  • Harvest in 15-20 weeks. Dig carefully, avoid damaging the potatoes.
  • Compatible with (can grow beside): Peas, Beans, Brassicas, Sweetcorn, Broad Beans, Nasturtiums, Marigolds
  • Avoid growing close to: Cucumber, Pumpkin, Sunflowers, Tomatoes, Rosemary

Your comments and tips

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21 Sep 08, Chris (Australia - cool/mountain climate)
Kim, in some parts of the country it's illegal to plant potatoes which aren't certified seed, so you might want to check for your region. I've grown ex-supermarket potatoes (especially more 'unusual' varieties, like kippfler) just by covering them with piles of wilted weeds and topping up the cover as the shoots come through, or the car tyre method like Mark describes.
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21 Sep 08, Mark (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Place 4 sheets wet newspaper on the ground,add one car tyre. Into the tyre place a good handful manure and water well. Cut up your eye potato into pieces (each with an eye) and dry for a few hours. Place pieces directly onto the wet manure and fill tyre with compost or soil. Cover with sugar cane mulch and stand back!!! Plant dwarf bean seeds under the mulch = 2 crops in one, very quickly.
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17 Sep 08, Kim Flood (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Do I need to purchase special potato tubers or can I use supermarket potatoes that have developed eyes. What are the ricks with planting old supermarket potatoes (if any).
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16 Sep 08, Liz (New Zealand - temperate climate)
Steve, it would be best if you use the manure in making compost. It has a high nitrogen content which can damage plants if used direct.
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16 Sep 08, Steve (Australia - temperate climate)
Can potatoes be grown in old horse manure or does something else need to be added??
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17 Nov 14, Kate (Australia - cool/mountain climate)
I'm new to growing potatoes or much else for that matter. My potatoes had started to sprout nice green plants about 6 cm tall. They seem to have been decimated I think by brush turkeys, I saw one near the patch but am also now thinking that they have raked the patch so other plants have not come up. There were also some fox droppings and also i think some wallaby droppings. Even though it is a bit late I'm going to plant again. How do I protect them?
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14 Sep 08, Addy (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Sandra, the 28 spotted lady bird - yellow with 26 to 28 black spots - is a pest that eats all the green leafy parts of potatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, pumpkin! I just pick them off and squash them...
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12 Sep 08, Jaci (Australia - temperate climate)
As your potato plants grow higher, continue to mound soil/compost around the stalk higher and higher until it is time to harvest the crop/plant. New tubers grow out from the stalk which grows up out of the mounded soil. Exposed tubers turn green and become inedible. Some people place old tyres around the plants and fill them with compost to continue growth upwards. When the leaves begin to yellow off is about when the new taters are ready to pull up.
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04 Sep 08, Sandra (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
My potatoes are growing rather nicely however in the last couple of days I have noticed that the leaves are looking "skeletal" I did see what I thought was a lady beetle on the leaves- but much bigger. Could this be the culprit? How do I organically control it?
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08 Jan 16, Ange (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
It could be the 28 spotted potato ladybird with out seeing a picture it is hard to say. There are some ladybirds that will eat away at powdery mildew if there is none of that I would most likely say it's the potato lady bird. It will be 6-10mm long, a orange colour with 26-28 dark spots. With the skeletal looking leaves it would be its eggs. There are no chemicals registered for control of the leaf eating ladybirds in home gardens. You will have to remove by hand and squash the larvae and egg clusters. Natural predators that will kill them are parasitic wasp, birds & assassin bugs. So might be wise to encourage these into your yard. Remove any weeds you have in the garden as well. Other plants they will attack are cucumbers, eggplant, pumpkin and tomatoes and some weeds such as nightshades.
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I would like to endorse the comments above regarding the use of tyres to grow Potatoes or in fact use to grow any any food. The rubber compounds in both the carcase and tread contain significant numbers of nasties. Tyres are designed to perform at high speed under quite arduous conditions, absolutely not designed as end of life food growing receptacles! They contain many potential hazards/chemicals, far too many to fully list. I will list just a couple,so that fellow readers who do not have my background can appreciate better what they are dealing with. Firstly the reinforcing Carbon Blacks utilized in the rubber compounds, contain significant amounts of Organo-Nitrogen compounds, blacks of this type are banned for use with any "Potable Water" applications! the reason being these compounds are considered as being high risk carciogens. There are special Blacks made specifically for food contact applications, rubber reinforcing blacks are definitely not suitable. Processing aids, The rubber in the tyres must be made to be strong/resilient/heat resistant; specially designed chemical compounds are encorporated into the rubber compounds to achieve this. The chemical compounds used present problems in many directions, firstly they are not ( dont need to be) pure compounds they contain debris from the chemical synthesis processes used to make them; these same compounds also decompose both during Vulcanization and during the life of the tyre. The Organo-Chemical families many of these compounds belong to include compounds that are considered hazardous and not suitable for food contact. The possibility of side chemical reactions between both the impurities and the debris from the degradation, resulting in compounds that could present significant hazards is real. Are tyres dangerous? yes! when attached to cars driven by idiots and when used as receptacles to grow food; otherwise no!

- Geoff Brooks

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