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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08 Jan 11, dave (Australia - cool/mountain climate)
my potato vines are growing berrys that look like tiny tomatoes about the size of a marble is this normal ?
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14 Jan 11, Grace (Australia - temperate climate)
Yes this is normal. They are not edible, so pick them off to encourage the plant to dedicate it's energy into producing tubers.
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31 Dec 10, Di Dixon (Australia - temperate climate)
Can you please let me know if English New Jersey Potatoes can be grown here in Australia & if yes where can I get some from? Cheers Di
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24 Oct 11, Julia (Australia - temperate climate)
Di - did you ever grow any New Jersey potatoes? I'm in Sydney and I'd love to try and grow some. Thanks so much.
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08 Nov 10, Jan (Australia - arid climate)
This is my second year at growing potatoes near Kalgoorlie. Although it gets hot quickly as long as you keep the water up to them they seem to thrive. All I added last year was some blood and bone and a bit of hay for mounding them up. I've got heavy red loam ground here and the first year I grew enormous potatoes but many were derformed from the rocks in the ground. This year I decided to build a raised bed and use a mix of the red loam, potting compost and hay. I didnt plant till late September because of late frosts but already plants are really high and flowering. Unfortunately I didnt keep up with mounding them up as quickly as I should have and maybe they will not produce as many spuds because of this. I have read that you have to keep mounding them so that only one inch of stem is out of the ground. If the main stem becomes too long and exposed to the sun it no longer grows side shoots and spuds - is this true?
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04 Sep 10, Mark Thornton (Australia - temperate climate)
We live on the NSW south coast. As we are new to gardening, the question is, Can we produce a year around crop of potatoes? If so, which varieties do you plant when?
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30 Oct 11, Bruce (Australia - temperate climate)
You should be able to grow almost any variety of spuds all year so long as you don't have frosts.
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02 Sep 10, Cygnetian (Australia - cool/mountain climate)
Hi, I'm in country Southern Tasmania and have never grown potatoes before. Does anyone know whether the plants need to be fenced off from the wildlife? (Here we have mostly possums and paddemelons.) Thanks!
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23 Nov 10, Lucky Phil (Australia - temperate climate)
It would be better to fence them off. We have a hen who likes to dig for worms, so we fenced off our potato patch. The possums will probably eat the leaves, and other wildlife may dig the freshly turned soil for worms. We have possum trouble with one of our roses.
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29 Dec 10, Karl (Australia - temperate climate)
I live in country Northeast Tassie and have sucessfully grown potatos without fencing them off from wildlife such as possums an pademelons. In fact spotlighting at night I have never seen any sign of wildlife amongst my spuds, nor any browsing damage done to the foliage. I have noticed that snakes seem to particularly enjoy slithering amongst the crop.
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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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