Potatoes For Every Garden

Don’t cross spuds off your ‘grow your own’ list just because you are concerned about space. Kris Collins looks at the best options for both plots and pots…

- Kris Collins

They may originate from South America, but we Brits have claimed potatoes for our own, and these days they are one of our favourite crops to grow – as well as to eat. It helps that they are pretty easy. Choose high-yielding modern varieties with strong pest and blight resistance and you’ll have very few problems.

Best results are had on soils that have been dug and improved with manure or compost in autumn; but potatoes grow well in a range of soils types and conditions. Depending on the space available – and how self-sufficient in spuds you want to be – you can either grow tubers in the ground or in bags; or, like me, you can opt for a mix of both.

Whatever you decide, you’ll first need to select from the different cropping groups: first early, second early and maincrop (see our guide, overleaf). By growing varieties from all three you’ll ensure an extended harvest and have potatoes to suit all culinary uses.

When growing in the ground, the traditional advice is to mark a row, dig a long planting drill, apply feed, set tubers in the soil and back-fill. This is still the best method for heavy soils and large areas. However, on well-dug, workable soils I find it easier (and quicker) to get on my hands and knees with a trowel and plant my tubers individually, like spring flower bulbs. Simply drop tubers into 6in (15cm) deep holes and close the soil over them.

Either way, rows should be covered with a 4in (10cm) ridge of soil. I mix in 50g of organic potato fertiliser over each tuber while doing this. If rain doesn’t bed things in within a couple of days, you’ll need to water the rows. Then, as soon as 4in (10cm) of foliage growth is showing, the rows should be earthed up – drawing soil up around them will encourage longer, tuber-producing stems. It’s a good idea to earth up sooner if frosts are forecast, in order to protect the tender foliage growth.