Potato: Sowing, planting and harvest calendar
How can you encourage potatoes to germinate?
Chitting means encouraging the eyes on seed potato tubers to sprout before planting. It can bring forward the harvest of early varieties, but it is optional and offers less benefit for late maincrop varieties. You are preparing planting tubers, rather than sowing the true seeds found inside the plant’s fruits.
Choose certified seed potatoes that are firm and healthy. Reject soft, rotting or badly damaged tubers. Arrange them in a single layer in a shallow tray or egg boxes, with the end carrying the most eyes uppermost. Leave room for the sprouts to develop without becoming tangled.
Keep them somewhere cool, bright and frost free for several weeks. Avoid a warm, dark room, which encourages long, pale, fragile shoots. Look instead for short, coloured, sturdy sprouts. Check the tubers regularly and remove any that start rotting. Do not soak them or enclose them in a damp bag.
Plan chitting around the possible planting date, often four to six weeks later. If the ground remains frozen or waterlogged, keep the tubers protected. Handle them gently when planting so you do not snap off the sprouts.
How do you plant potatoes?
Plant your potatoes in spring when the soil is workable, unfrozen and not waterlogged. Adjust the date to your climate and how early the variety matures: cold, saturated soil can rot the tubers. Choose healthy certified seed potatoes, whether chitted or not, and a sunny plot where potatoes did not grow the previous year.
Prepare loose, fertile, well-drained soil, adding mature compost if needed. Dig trenches or individual holes about 15 cm deep. Set the tubers with their sprouts upwards and cover gently without breaking the shoots. For early varieties, allow about 30 cm between plants and 60 cm between rows; for maincrops intended for storage, allow around 37 cm and 75 cm. Adapt these guides to your variety’s instructions.
In a pot or growing sack, use a large container with drainage holes and suitable compost, leaving height to add more compost gradually. Avoid overcrowding the available space with too many tubers. Water after planting if the soil is dry. Be ready to cover young shoots during late frosts and keep developing tubers away from light by covering them as the plants grow.
How to care for this plant
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Earth up plants
Wait until shoots are about 20–25 cm tall before gradually earthing up. Leave the shoot tips exposed and keep tubers covered.
How can you optimise your potato harvest?
Harvest your potatoes according to the variety and intended use. For new potatoes, gently move soil aside at the edge of a plant to check the size of a few tubers. Cover them again if they are still too small. Flowering can offer a guide for some early varieties, but checking the tubers is more useful than following one date for every plant.
For varieties intended for storage, wait for maturity and the natural yellowing of healthy foliage. Choose a dry day if possible. Insert a fork well away from the plant, around 30 cm out, then lift the soil and finish by hand to avoid spearing potatoes. With container crops, gently empty the compost and sort the tubers.
Use early potatoes and sound but wounded tubers promptly. To store the rest, let them dry briefly, brush off soil without washing and keep only dry, intact, healthy potatoes. Discard green or rotting ones. Store your harvest in darkness, somewhere cool, frost free and ventilated, using paper or hessian sacks. Check regularly and remove any deteriorating tubers. Storage life depends on the batch, variety and storage conditions.
Potato
- Type : Vegetables
- Subtype : Tuber vegetables
- Botanical Family : Solanaceae
Characteristics
- Lifecycle : Annual
- Exposure : Full Sun
- Frost Hardiness : Slightly Frost Sensitive
- Cultivation Difficulty : Medium
- Mature height : 60 cm
Sowing & Planting
- Greenhouse Growing : Not Required
- Sowing Depth : 10 cm
- Plant Spacing : 25 cm
- Row Spacing : 60 cm
Maintenance
- Maintenance : Moderate
- Water Requirements : Moderate
Other characteristics
- Soil Type : Humus-rich
- Soil pH Preference : Neutral
- Pest Sensitivity : Moderate
- Disease Sensitivity : High
- Weed Sensitivity : Moderate
- Pollination : Insect-pollinated
- Propagation : Division