Watch This BEFORE You Plant Potatoes 🥔

I'm obsessed with potatoes. You probably love potatoes. And if you don't love potatoes, unsubscribe. Go solve a jigsaw puzzle. Cause that's what we're talking about in today's video. You're going to learn every single thing you need to know to plant these beautiful crops and have them grow amazingly. Let's talk potato types first. And there's a confusing piece of terminology here that you may have seen thrown around. Honestly, when I saw it, I was like, what does that mean? And it's determinate versus indeterminate potatoes. If you're a longtime gardener, you may have heard of determinate and indeterminate tomatoes, which are actually related to potatoes, but it doesn't really work the same way in the world of potatoes. And to explain it, one of my longtime gardening friends Tony over in the UK is going to break it down. Determinate potatoes are also known as first early and second early potatoes. And they are recognized for their quick growing nature, typically taking between 10 and 12 weeks for them to mature. They are smaller in size, but they are perfect for things like salad potatoes and an ideal variety here is the red Pontiac. Second early, on the other hand are also a determinate potato, but they grow slightly larger and they take typically 13 to 15 weeks to mature. And a favorite of mine is the Charlotte potato. Mink crop potatoes also categorized as indeterminate potatoes are the largest varieties to grow. And they are so versatile because you can use them for baked potatoes, mashed potato, roast potato, crisps and chips and fries. They're really versatile potatoes. Now they have a longer growing period, typically 16 to 22 weeks. The great thing about mink crop potatoes is they grow on multiple levels through the root system. Whereas a determinate potato only grows on a single level. So you can pick early second early main crop style potatoes or grow a combination of those. But there's a few other considerations when selecting these perfect spuds for your garden. And that would be first color. You've got reds, yellows, whites, pinks, even blue. I'm growing one called Adirondack blue this year. We'll see how it goes. So they get pretty funky, but more importantly than color is really the texture. So right here I have a Norland red potato. This is what's called a waxy style potato. That's going to be one that's higher in moisture content, kind of a glossy mouthfeel and really good for let's say boiling and cutting up and throwing in a salad as a potato, just sort of eating it as is. Then you've got a starchy style potato of which russet is probably a really good example of, which would be great for turning into fries, baking, mashing, those types of preparations, because it's a little fluffier that starch can kind of take in flavor and take in different combinations to make a really delicious meal. So when you're thinking about the potatoes to grow, you want to think about how you want to eat them and that might determine the type you select. To chit or not to chit your potatoes? That is the question. And it's an awkward word. I don't really like saying it. I heard it from my British gardeners cause that's the term they use, but basically it means to pre-sprout your potato. Whether you're growing from what's called a seed potato, which is a potato that has been grown specifically to plant and produce more potatoes, or you're growing from, let's say an organic grocery store potato, this is a method that can really boost your productivity, especially for you cold climate growers who have a short growing season. What you're looking for on your potato are these things called eyes. And you can see little examples here. It's like a little divot that a sprout will come out of. And that's what's called chitting. So it will chit out a little bit of a sprout here. So the way you'll do this is you'll take your potatoes, you will put them in maybe an egg carton and you'll bring them into an area which is relatively cool, but has some access to light. And you'll orient them so that most of those eyes are pointing up. Cause when it sprouts, you're going to want those sprouts going upwards. About four to six weeks before you plan on planting your potatoes out, then you'll see about an inch of growth on each of these sprouts out of the eyes. And that's when you'll start to actually plant them in the ground. But I want to be really clear. You don't have to chit your potato. I have potatoes that I just forgot to harvest in the garden last season. Obviously they weren't chitted. They then sprouted underground completely and came up. But I would recommend it if you're in a cold climate. If you're in a warm climate like mine, sometimes I just throw my potatoes right in the ground. We're finally at the point where we can plant these potatoes. I'm going to show you four different ways, depending on what you like to do, where you like to live, all that good stuff. So first is going to be a bucket method and a grow bag method for you container gardeners. Let's talk potato size. So this one is pretty small. And if I count the eyes, I've got one, two, three eyes. This one, same variety, but it's just a bigger seed potato. And I've got about six eyes on this. So if you want to make the most of your potato buying budget, this is what I would do. I would cut this one in half and I'd make sure that at least two eyes are on each half. There you go. Now, what I'd do in this case is I would wait, uh, I don't know, two days for this to callous over a little bit. Or you could throw some sort of fine dust or powder type material on here to kind of seal this off, but you don't want it to rot in the ground. This is just going to multiply your yield because now you have two potatoes with two different sets of eyes on them. So let's go with the five gallon bucket method. First, I just have a standard five gallon here, and I'm going to fill this one up with just basic potting soil. The beauty of potatoes is that while it might be nice to give them a little extra fertility, get a little fancy with them, you can throw them in relatively poor soil and they're actually going to say, Hey, I'm okay. I can, I can deal with this. So in a five gallon bucket, my personal preference would be to plant one very nice looking seed potato. So I'm going to go in with this guy right here, straight in the center. And I'm going to fill this bucket up about, I don't know, halfway or so. And I'm going to dig this potato in about two to three inches. So in it goes, boom. For extra bonus credit, you can make sure that the eye areas are pointing upwards. Then it won't have as much work to do to get out of the soil. I'm going to cover that up and I water that in. And congratulations, your job is done with this container set up right now. All you have to do is just wait for this to sprout. And as the potato starts to put sprouts out, you keep covering them until you get to the top. Then you just let this thing rip and you'll have an amazing harvest. When you get to a grow bag, this is a larger grow bag. And obviously I've got some room here. I can probably plant three potatoes. So I might take my two chunks. And I might also take one extra small guy here and I'll go in a triangle pattern. So I'll just plant like that, eyes facing up again. And I cover with a couple inches. You don't need to fill it all the way up because you can hill these potatoes up to hopefully produce more potatoes. Now, remember from our early, second early and main discussion earlier in the video, sometimes they don't produce a ton in that hilling area. But for me, why not? I'll just go ahead and do it. We'll see what we get on these bad boys. The fun thing about a grow bag, when it does start to sprout, because this is a flexible side, you can actually do this fun little hack and just roll the side down and give them access to light a little bit earlier than you might with, let's say the five gallon bucket. These are our lined grow bags. So you see a little bit of a lining here, but this is a fun little extra tip. So those are your container options. Let's get into the in-ground options, which has become my favorite way to grow potatoes. So I've become a lover of in-ground potatoes and these tips would also apply to a raised bed if you're growing in that method. I have this four by four area. I'm going to show you how to plant in with two different techniques for in-ground because potatoes are just so forgiving. You can kind of mess around and have some fun. What I'm going to do is just take a shovel and just really gently loosen the soil. The only reason why I'm doing this, is because I walked over this stuff a lot, you know? So I'm just going to loosen this up a touch because potatoes of course are developing underground on what are called stolons, under the ground and then they kind of like just bulbously form in a little pocket. So I want them to have an easy ability to form. So I'm just going to loosen this up slightly. Simple shovel will do fine. Now let me show you what I will probably call the most classic way to plant a potato. And that would be to dig a trench. So planting potatoes in a row, super efficient way to do it. Dig about six to eight inches deep. In-ground I find, because you're probably not going to hill it up as much, I prefer to plant it just a touch deeper than I might in a container. Cause I only filled those containers halfway up. Of course, I can add more soil if I want to. Whereas it gets a little more annoying in my opinion to hill up in ground. So I've got my trench. Easiest way to plant potatoes is drop them in whole about a foot apart. Remember they are growing underground. If you plant them right next to one another, you'll impact the yield because they're starting to compete for space and nutrients. So in I go over here and I'll measure out about a foot. In this case, I might even go a little bit more like 15, 18 inches or so. So in we go there, there we'll do, I don't know, five potatoes. You just cover this up and that's pretty much it for this method. Speaking of soil, you're probably wondering what kind of soil. Like I said, potatoes, pioneer crop. You don't have to improve the soil. If you want to, you can. You can throw some compost in here. That'd probably be what I would do. But back in the day when I first moved into this house that I've been building the Epic Homestead on, I just threw them straight in that hard clay and they did completely fine. If you want a super lazy potato method, this is the one for you. Also known as the Ruth Stout method. So I'm just loosening the soil. In fact, Ruth Stout probably wouldn't have loosened the soil. She'd probably be laughing at me in her grave cause she would just drop potatoes on the ground and cover them up with some straw and move on her merry way. But I like to give myself just a little bit of insurance by loosening that soil up and drawing a very, very shallow trench here. That's as deep as you really need for this method. And then you just plop them down like this. Seems crazy. Same spacing. Boom, boom. We'll do two more. One and two. And you're thinking, okay, cool. How are these potatoes actually going to grow? Boom. We've got some straw. Ruth would use hay, I think, or kind of whatever was around. I'm using straw. Just dump it on top. What does this do? Well, give some very nice moisture retention. It prevents them from being hit by the sun, which in potato world is not great because it'll cause them to turn green. They don't taste so great when they're green. Contrary to popular opinion, you actually can eat a green potato. It just isn't really that good. So why would you? But you're not going to like die from eating a green potato. I have that on good authority from my friend, Potato Ty who farms probably the biggest potato farm up in Canada. So this is all you have to do for the Ruth Stout method. There you go. Now, this would be a really good method, like I said, if you just want a no work method, but also if you're growing those first early, second early potatoes that don't really need hilling and you can grow them as new potatoes. So in about 12 weeks, I can just pull this aside and go, Hey, look at this. And I can just farm those potatoes right out. I don't even have to dig them out of the ground. So potato growing is one of the most fun things you can do in the garden, especially if you have kids or you just like to play around on the soil, like myself. Full potato playlist right here. We got our seeded potatoes this year from Wood Prairie Farms. We love them. Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.