The Ultimate Organic Guide to Growing Potatoes

What I Have Learned About Growing Spuds

I’ve grown potatoes in just about every setup a home garden can offer—trenches, grow bags, raised beds, and once, a straw pile that looked like a barn collapsed in the yard. No matter how tidy or improvised the method, the moment you sink a fork into the soil and feel that clunk of a potato underneath, it still hits with the same kind of surprise as finding something you didn’t remember hiding.

Growing potatoes can be simple, but they’re not mindless. A few things matter a lot more than people think: the growth habit of the variety, the pH of your soil, how steady your moisture stays, and the way you treat the tubers after harvest. Once you understand those pieces, your harvest changes—usually for the better.

I. Getting Set Up: Variety, Habit, and Everything That Happens Before Planting

Most people think the hard part of potatoes starts at planting, but the truth is your harvest is already decided by then. The type of potato you pick and the way that plant forms tubers underground—those two choices shape your season more than anything else you’ll do with a shovel.

A. Growth Habits: Determinate vs. Indeterminate (The Part Most Guides Skip)

Potatoes grow by their own rules, and if you don’t know which “rulebook” your variety follows, it’s easy to over-hill or under-hill and lose yield without realizing it.

Determinate types do well in confined spaces because they don’t climb much. Indeterminate potatoes behave like they’re trying to build a storage tower underground, so they need depth—real depth—not the eight inches most people give them.

B. Choosing the Right Variety

I group my potatoes by how I cook and store them. It keeps things simple.

A small patch can hold all three if you plan right. Early potatoes for summer meals, mid-season for that steady supply, and a late storage type if you want something that actually lasts past the holidays.

A quick note: store potatoes from the grocery store might sprout, but they come with baggage—disease, sprout inhibitors, and a handful of other surprises. Certified seed potatoes cost more but save you problems you don’t want.

C. Chitting (Pre-Sprouting)

I don’t chit every year, but when I do, the plants pop up evenly and the whole bed settles into the season quicker.

Set your seed potatoes in a bright, cool place—50–60°F is perfect—with the eyes facing up. Those little nubs will grow into stout, dark sprouts if the light and temperature are right. Long, pale sprouts mean things are too warm or too dim.

Plan four to six weeks ahead if you want that head start.

II. Soil, Timing, and the Part Where You Actually Plant

Potatoes are honest. If your soil is poor, they’ll show it. If the pH is off, they’ll show that too. And if you load them up with nitrogen, you’ll grow a jungle of leaves and almost nothing underneath.

A. Soil Prep: The Real Foundation

Texture and structure
Potatoes in raised beds want soil that lets them move. Loose, crumbly, and well-drained. If your soil crusts hard after rain or compacts into bricks by midsummer, you’ll end up with crooked or stubby potatoes. Clay-heavy plots are usually better handled from a raised bed, unless you’re willing to add compost like it’s a second job.

Scab and pH
Common scab isn’t a disease you “catch”—it’s a soil condition. It loves alkaline soil. If your pH drifts above 5.5, scab takes the hint and moves in. Doesn’t hurt eating quality much, but it’s not pretty.

The sweet spot for potatoes is pH 5.0–5.5. If you’re running high, a fall application of sulfur or a good dose of peat can nudge things down.

Skip fresh manure—it’s basically an invitation for scab.

Feeding
Potatoes don’t need a lot of nitrogen. What they want is balance: enough phosphorus and potassium to build tubers. Organic fertilizers in ranges like 4-2-2, 3-4-4, or 5-10-10 treat them well. I usually give the plants a little compost mid-season once they’ve put on a foot of growth. Not much—just enough to keep them from stalling.

B. Timing: When Soil Says “Go Ahead”

You can plant by the calendar or you can plant by the soil. The soil is more honest.

Potatoes can handle cool weather, but they don’t love being planted into cold, wet dirt. 45°F (7°C) is the earliest temperature where I’d call it safe, but things move quicker at 50°F (10°C).

Below 40°F, the eyes can twist and curl underground, and that mess of confused sprouts produces weak plants later. I’ve learned to wait for steady warmth instead of the first warm spell.

Most gardeners plant potatoes 2–4 weeks before their last frost, but a hard freeze on new growth will knock the plants back. If that happens, you can always pull soil or straw over the sprouts for a quick save.

C. Cutting and Callusing

Small seed potatoes go straight in. Big ones get cut.

Each piece should be about the size of a golf ball with two or three eyes. After cutting, let the pieces sit somewhere dim and cool for a couple days so the cuts dry into a leathery skin. This little waiting period makes a big difference—cut surfaces heal, and rot becomes a lot less likely.

III. Planting Methods and Hilling

Potatoes grow in all sorts of setups, and none of them are wrong. Some just suit certain soils and spaces better.

A. The Classic Trench Method

If you’ve ever watched an old-timer plant potatoes, this is probably what they did.

• Dig a trench 6–8 inches deep.
• Lay the seed pieces 10–12 inches apart (go wider for big indeterminate types).
• Cover them with 3–4 inches of soil and leave the rest of the trench open for hilling later.

It’s forgiving and works in most garden soils.

B. Other High-Yield Approaches

Grow bags warm up fast, which helps in cool spring climates. They also dry out quickly, which can be a mixed blessing. The straw method, on the other hand, keeps moisture steady and makes harvest unbelievably easy.

C. Hilling: Why It Matters

Hilling does a few jobs at once:

• Protects tubers from sunlight
• Supports the plant
• Makes room for indeterminate types to produce more potatoes

First hill when plants hit 6–8 inches tall. Bury the lower leaves so only the top third shows. Then come back every 2–3 weeks to add more soil, compost, or straw until the mound reaches a foot or so.

This is one of those quiet chores that pays off without much fuss.

IV. Organic Pest and Disease Management

Every season has a few visitors—some helpful, some not. Healthy soil and rotation solve most of it, but potatoes still have their usual suspects.

B. Common Diseases

Potato Scab
Cosmetic and usually harmless inside, but annoying. Keep soil pH low and moisture steady during tuber set.

Late Blight
You’ll see dark, water-soaked patches on leaves that spread fast. Stems can collapse. If you find it, pull the whole plant and don’t compost it. Good airflow and clean seed potatoes help prevent it.

V. Harvesting and Storing the Crop

This is the part you think about when you plant potatoes in spring—the reveal.

A. Harvesting New Potatoes

A couple of weeks after flowering, you can reach into the hill and harvest.