Potatoes are a productive, beginner-friendly crop when you start with healthy seed potatoes and give the developing tubers loose soil, steady moisture, and protection from sunlight. This flagship guide covers the full process—from receiving and preparing seed potatoes through planting, hilling, harvest, curing, and storage. Use the linked supporting guides for regional, container, video, and yield-focused advice.
Still choosing a variety? Use our four-question Potato Selector to match in-stock seed potatoes to your growing season, cooking plans, preferred size, and top priority.
Receiving Your Potatoes
Please be sure to open your package of seed potatoes on the day it is delivered, and inspect them right away. If some are sprouting, handle them carefully to avoid damaging the sprouts. If you cannot plant right away, store the potatoes in a dark, cool place with good humidity and ventilation.
Check dormancy before planting: Newly harvested fall seed potatoes may remain dormant for a time, while spring shipments may already show sprouts. Keep unplanted tubers cool, dark, and well ventilated. A short pre-sprouting period in moderate light can help confirm that eyes are active before planting; avoid forcing growth with fruit or storing seed pieces where they can shrivel.
Preparing the Seeds
Greening or Chitting: European market growers always pre-sprout their early potatoes for stronger, quicker stands and higher yields. This “greening” or “chitting” process is not necessary but is easy to do. Just spread the potatoes in open flats, seed end up. The seed end has the greatest concentration of eyes or growth buds and is the area where the strongest sprouts form.
Plan to expose the potatoes to moderate light and 60–70°F for one to two weeks. Potatoes smaller than 2” can be planted whole. Larger potatoes are cut into 1–2 oz. pieces, each containing 2+ eyes.
Next, dip the cut ends into dry wood ash to callous them or spread the pieces one layer deep, away from direct sun, for a day to cure.
At this time do not allow pieces to shrivel. Callusing is especially important if you are planting into fairly damp or cold soil.
Preparing the Bed
Potatoes prefer a pH range of about 4.8 to 5.5 and fertile, fairly weed-free soil. Scab is less of a problem if the pH is less than 6.0. Seed potatoes prefer sandy loam but will grow in a wide variety of soil types if the soil is well cultivated and well drained. The soil should be at least 45°F when you plant.
Base fertilizer choices on a soil test whenever possible. Potatoes need balanced nutrition; excess nitrogen can favor vines over tubers, and phosphorus should not be added automatically when soil levels are already adequate. Incorporate finished compost and, if testing shows a need, choose an appropriate organic fertilizer from our Fertilizers & Growing Supplies collection. Keep concentrated fertilizer from direct contact with seed pieces.
Important Note: High quality, aerobic compost, low in wood or rice byproducts, is preferable to manure as a fertilizer. If you must fertilize with manure, be sure it is well-aged and that it is incorporated shallowly into the soil at least 3–4 weeks before planting, otherwise the process of soil digestion will deprive the germinating potatoes of vital nutrients and water.
Do not fertilize with fresh manure, as this can cause scab. One of the best ways to prepare the ground for potatoes is to cover crop. Cover crops or “green manures” greatly improve the soil’s tilth, organic matter, microbial activity, and water holding capacity, and significantly increases nutrient availability for the next crop.
Legume cover crops (peas, vetches, clovers, alfalfas, etc.) have the unique ability to extract nitrogen from the air and return huge amounts of it to the soil in plant-available form. Rye, buckwheat and sweet clover mine insoluble phosphorus from the earth and return it in plant-available form. In most areas, a cover crop of our Summer Soil Builder Mix, which contains cowpeas (for nitrogen) and buckwheat (for phosphorus), will provide an easy and cost-effective way to prepare the ground for fall potatoes.
To prepare for spring potatoes, many home gardeners like to fall plant our Soil Builder Mix. For more information, see our article on Cover Crop. Wait to plant potatoes (or vegetables) for 2-4 weeks after turning under your cover crop, to allow time for it to break down in the soil.
Planting & Growing
To begin, hoe a shallow furrow (3 inches wide and 3 inches deep). Gardeners can space the rows 20–26” apart, but farmers might want to make them 30–36” apart. Space potato seeds, eyes up, 12” apart in the rows, and immediately rake 3” of loose, fine garden soil over them.
Do not plant the potatoes any deeper than 3 inches. The new potatoes will grow above the seed piece, so “hilling up” is necessary to provide sufficient friable soil and to protect the new potatoes from full sun exposure.
About 2 weeks after planting, when the plant shoots are 4–5” high, rake a good mound of soil around them, leaving about 1” of shoot exposed. In 2 to 3 weeks, hill again if necessary, taking care not to damage the plant’s roots.
Please be certain to keep the soil moist and irrigate if necessary. Mulch thickly with straw if heavy frosts are a factor. Another approach, valued for the clean, easy dig it provides, is to grow your potatoes in straw.
Do not set a trench, just lay the seed on the loosened soil and cover it with 6” of straw. As sprouts appear, keep mulching with straw. You must provide enough mulch (10–12”) to fully protect the new potato crop from sunlight.
Sunlight can green exposed tubers and increase glycoalkaloids. Re-cover developing potatoes promptly, and discard tubers that are extensively green, bitter, damaged, or sprouting heavily.
At harvest time, just pull back the mulch.
Growing Potatoes in Containers
Potatoes are easily grown in containers and the only requirement is that they have good drainage and should be at least 3’ high. It is a good idea to use at least a 15 gallon container (try a 15 gallon Smart Pot.) The best potato varieties to grow in a container are mid to late season ones and just a note, russets do not size up as well if grown in a container.
The best growing medium is half potting soil, half compost. Do not use animal manure compost unless it has been well aged as this can lead to scab development.
You can also use half peat instead of compost. This is especially good since potatoes like a low pH soil. Follow the previous directions for cutting and drying out the pieces.
Put the seed potatoes in about 8” of soil mix and space the pieces about 8-12” apart with the eyes up. Cover with about 6” of soil. As the potatoes grow you should fertilize about twice a month. Water deeply whenever the first 1-2” of soil feels dry.
An all purpose fertilizer can also be used in combination with bone meal or bulb tone which provide the phosphorus the plant needs to develop nice tubers.
As the tops grow you should add more soil on top (hilling), but leave at least 3-6” of the plant showing. A layer of mulch like straw can added to the top of the soil to reduce moisture loss.
Potatoes are ready to harvest when the tops have yellowed and died back, usually in the fall. Lay out a tarp and dump out the container, a screen or sieve can be used as well to make finding the tubers a little easier.
Harvesting
Spring-planted, early varieties will be ready in about 50–60 days. For maximum freshness, dig only what you can eat in 2 days. Do not eat green potatoes, as they contain the toxic alkaloid solanine.
Later varieties, intended for winter storage, should be “matured.” Let frost kill the vines, or kill them by scything, flaming or mowing them.
For storage potatoes, wait until vines have died back and skins have set before digging carefully. Cure sound tubers in a dark, ventilated place, then store them at about 40–46°F with high humidity and good airflow. Do not wash potatoes before storage, and remove damaged or diseased tubers.
Choose Your Next Potato Resource
- Watch the planting and growing video for a visual demonstration.
- Use the concise Potato Growing Guide as a quick reference.
- Plan a small-space or container crop.
- See Pacific Northwest timing and climate notes.
- Learn how to time your potato harvest.
Browse our seed potato collection to compare available varieties.
Plan the Next Step
Seasonal and Specialized Potato Guides
- Plant seed potatoes in fall in suitable mild-winter climates
- Plan a potato tower or vertical growing system
- Diagnose potato problems by symptom
- Determine when potatoes are ready to harvest
Compare current varieties in the seed potato collection, including organic seed potatoes.
