Growing Winter Potatoes In Your Organic Garden

Growing winter potatoes is best done in a warm climate or in sheltered containers. This is simply because it can be difficult to dig them up if the ground is frozen hard. The potatoes will also suffer from frost if they are left in the ground during winter in a cold climate.

However, there is nothing to stop you growing winter potatoes in a conservatory or greenhouse, for example, even if you live in a place where frost and snow are common in winter. You will simply need a greenhouse heater that switches on automatically to prevent the temperature dipping below the freezing point.

Potatoes growing in container. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When you are growing winter potatoes it is important to remember that growth will slow down when the days are shorter and colder. Therefore you need to start them in the summer (August or early September) if you want to harvest at Christmas, or a little earlier for Thanksgiving in the northern US. It is a wonderful feeling to be able to serve your own new potatoes with the family dinner on these holidays!

What is chitting and is it necessary?

You will often see recommendations that you should leave potatoes in a dark, cool place and wait for them to begin to sprout (chitting) before you plant them. If you have time to do this, that's great. You may see that some potatoes are failing to sprout and you can pick out the ones with the healthiest looking sprouts to plant. However, if you don't have time for this, don't worry about it. Most potatoes will grow just fine without chitting.

If using tub containers, you can put 3 plants into an 18 inch diameter container. Be sure that the containers are cleaned well with water and have drainage holes. Place a couple of inches of gravel at the bottom of the container to prevent waterlogging.

Then, for growing winter potatoes, place 3 inches of mulch, leaves or straw on top of the gravel. This will produce heat as it breaks down and help to keep the potatoes frost free.

1 and a half russet potato with sprouts.(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Plant them in about 3 inches of compost and fertilize well. Continue to add more compost and fertilizer as the plants grow, so that you gradually fill the container. (This will increase your yield, as the plants will form potatoes all the way up along the stems once covered.) If you can find organic potato fertilizer, that is ideal. Manure is too strong and will burn the roots of the plants.

The plants will continue to grow after the container is full. Then they will flower and a few weeks later the tops will start to die off. At that time the potatoes are ready. If you leave them a couple more weeks, they will continue to grow bigger.

Good varieties are Maris Peer, Charlotte and many others. You can buy seed potatoes or (provided you are growing in containers) you can use organic potatoes from the grocery store or locally grown organic potatoes from a farmers' market.

Do not plant bought potatoes that are not seed potatoes in the soil of your garden, however, because they can carry disease which will then stay in the soil and affect future crops. For the same reason, if you grow grocery store potatoes in containers, do not spread the compost on your garden after you are done growing winter potatoes.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Mine is growing great!  It's been quite an adventure for my garden this spring.... Crazy winds, cold nights, hail, and rain, rain, rain have proved a challenge for many local gardeners. But, the garden must go on! I seem to have picked the right crop for this year - I'm focusing on mainly potatoes, and apparently they LOVE rain! Some took a couple of weeks to come up, and when it was very cool, they grew slowly, but I think they have gained 8-inches this week alone! I just finished hilling them up a bit, and did the mulching, and they look just gorgeous!

Here are a couple of  pictures of my organic garden so far this year:

Happy potato plants!

2011 Garden - late May

In this last picture, you can see the potatoes on the left. In the background are gladiolas (and other slow-growing flowers that haven't taken off yet). To the right are the remainder of my lettuces which wintered over, and cilantro. Yum!

Video - Planting Potatoes

Potatoes will be my main crop this year - I love them, but have not grown them in a long time. They keep well, and I don't tend to get a whole lot of them in my CSA, so I usually run out pretty quickly. Hopefully this year I will get a good harvest that will tide me over through most of next winter.

This short video demonstrates an easy method of planting a nice bed of potatoes. Check it out, and get your spring garden going! (If you haven't already!)


Planting a Spring Garden : Planting Spring Gardens: Potatoes
When planting potatoes for a spring garden, start before the heat of the summer. Start growing potatoes with the tips in this free video on gardening and farming from a professional organic gardener. Expert: Daniel Botkin Bio: Daniel Botkin is an avi...