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 Australia - tropical 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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24 May 17, Giovanni (Australia - temperate climate)
It is fine to use milk crates to grow potatoes. Line the bottom, and sides if it is open sided, with old denim jeans or newspaper to help retain water then put a layer of growing medium and some old manure or compost in the bottom. position your potato 'seeds' and then put a layer of growing medium over them. Keep adding the medium as they emerge until you are at the top. Consistent watering is very important for any container grown vegetables.
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17 May 17, Suzanne (Australia - temperate climate)
The information you have here is helpful, but what i need to know is the average growing time to harvest please. The plants are flowering and I'm wondering if that is an indication? We live on the Sunshine Coast and the potato's were planted in October, 7 months ago.
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18 May 17, Mike (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
In Qld we plant potatoes in Autumn and Spring. St Patrick's Day is the general start time March 17th for Autumn. Spring is probably Sept. They take 12-20 weeks to grow - probably the warmer the climate the quicker. You can pick potatoes any time but to have mature spuds to store for awhile you wait until they flower and then start to die off. Have a little feel around to see how big they are.
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19 May 17, Mike (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
I was talking to a friend today who planted certified potatoes about 8 weeks ago (the last of the hot summer weather) in sandy soil. The last ones to shoot out of the soil had stunted curled up leaves - like the leaves had not unfolded and grown bigger. He took them to a commercial grower to find out why. This fellow said it happened because the soil was too hot. Being sandy loam it probably retained the heat more in the soil. Out of about 35 potatoes about 8 had this problem. The commercial grower has only just planted his crop - Bundaberg Qld. He waits until the potatoes eyes start to shoot and then plants. Hope that helps.
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17 May 17, Ken (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
Potatoes can take 14 - 20 weeks, when the tops die down to be ready for long-storage harvest. 'New' potatoes can be harvested about 4 weeks after flowering. These potatoes should be 'raided' without disturbing the plant too much so that others can mature.
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13 May 17, Ian (Australia - temperate climate)
hi, just wondering if I can plant cucumbers after a potato crop. my potatoes are in a raised bed
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15 May 17, Darren (Australia - temperate climate)
Hi Ian, While they don't make good companion plants, there's no reason you can't grow them in the same bed afterwards. Don't forget to enrich the bed with plenty of compost first.
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15 May 17, Giovanni (Australia - temperate climate)
You should be able to. Cucurbits, which include cucumbers like well manured soil and a consistent water supply. Put a trellis up, this will keep you plants tidier and the cucumbers cleaner.
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17 May 17, Mike (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
People say you can't plant this after that or plant tomatoes in the same area for a year or two. There is a cycle of how you plant different veggies after each other to best use the soil. BUT you can plant things differently if you like. I have a garden bed approx. 13 m long and it varies from 4 to 7' in depth. Now in the shorter rows I mainly plant lettuce, radish, beetroot, shallots etc and the longer rows corn, tomatoes, snow peas etc. I plant 2 crops per year (autumn and spring) and mix it up a bit - like I will follow radish with lettuce or tomatoes after snow peas. So year after year I plant like this. As long as you give the soil a top up with compost and or fertiliser then you can plant whatever you like. I don't have heaps of diseases etc. My main problems are birds eating young plants (lettuce snow peas) early in the growing season, grubs eating cabbages/broccoli after rain and beans being killed by some worm or something growing into winter. Am going to grow beans in the spring this year - see how that works.
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03 May 17, Tony Morales (Australia - temperate climate)
I read that potatoes should not be planted close to tomatoes and I was wondering why so.
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Technically you don't HAVE TO HILL any variety of potatoes. Here's how it works: you plant the seed potato (which is an extra small potato saved/stored from last year's harvest -- or a piece of a larger potato that you stored/saved from last year) -- the DEPTH THAT you PLANT that SEED POTATO determines your LOWEST POINT -- GENERALLY, and I do mean GENERALLY (like 95% of the potatoes) the potato plant will not create tubers LOWER than the depth you planted the seed potato at (so your seed potato is the BOTTOM of the plants tubers/potatoes). Which is why some people think the very bottom potato always rots, when in reality it is the seed potato and is expected to grow and will appear rotten. Which means if you don't hill up as your potato plant grows and you planted the seed potato shallow, there is not that much ROOM for the potato plant to put it's tubers, and larger tubers will usually "pop" out of the soil and turn green due to sun exposure. If you don't want to hill up, plant your seed potato deeper than recommended -- yes it will be fine -- the reason you plant shallow and mound up is because the potato plant will be able to get leaves into the sun sooner if it's seed potato was planted shallow, which means it will grow quicker because it is collecting light sooner -- then you mound up to offset that you planted the seed potato shallow, but you always leave lots of leaves exposed to the sun so the plant can collect sun and grow. It's a lot of extra work work to mound up soil-- and maybe speeds up the process "brings in the harvest" by 10 days or so.... My experience is planting seed potatoes a foot deep ((30cm) is fine -- yes the plant takes a little longer for it's leaves to surface -- but it's fine and you should not experience any problems - provided the soil is nice and loose. (hopefully that makes senses). I think in the future I will plant two potatoes side by side -- one deep, one using the mound method and record the progress and final outcomes... I have never done a tandem planting -- BUT I HAVE had potatoes spring up from deep down Once as I dug out one of these "self planted potatoes" I realized it was down about 30" (70cm) -- it was in a potato planting tower (old full size garbage can full of 3" holes all over) which I dumped and collect the potatoes from the year before, then just put the soil back, week by week, as I composted kitchen scraps directly into the soil... so no surprise that a potato was so deep -- it grew -- it put out potatoes and it's crop was average good... it spent a lot of energy growing up -- and perhaps I harvested too early based on the other potatoes-- but it made it and did OK, good size potatoes, good quantity. I would not recommend placing your seed potatoes that deep, but a foot (30cm) should be fine.

- Celeste Archer

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