This is a blog post on growing and harvesting potatoes at home. Potatoes are a staple diet in many northern hemisphere countries. it has been grown for many years and there are many different varieties of them. It is a bit like eating rice in the tropics. Potatoes are relatively easy to grow but it is not as easy as oca tubers. It may seem easy however it is prone to a few diseases like potato blight, etc. There are a few ways to prevent potato blight is to choose a blight-free variety. Planting the potatoes at the right time. Spotting the first sign of it and basically keep the plants ventilated and enough air circulating. Potato blight is a fungal disease.
Potatoes can be cooked in many different ways from boiled, fried, poach, slice and bake. It is also gluten-free and of course vegan. It is a very versatile ingredient. To be honest, if I have a small garden I would still grow them but probably in confined spaces like in a compost bag. As nothing is as nice a freshly harvested pud from the garden.
Growing and harvesting potatoes
To get growing to buy some potato seeds from the plant suppliers. Yes, it possible to grow from supermarket-bought ones however many aren’t produced for home growing. Also, they might be hard to grow as well or rather to get a decent crop out of them. But if the potato starts to produce shoots in the kitchen it is no harm in trying to grow it in the garden. Grow them somewhere you can dig them outcome harvest time. So an allocated sot in a raised bed or compost bag is a better place to grow them compared to the clay soiled borders. Give them plenty of room and a sunny spot to grow. Grow them in well drain manure compost. Leave them to grow do feed them. Start growing them as early as March and they will be ready to harvest in June before the humid and hot summer season.
Once the potato plant starts to flower and the stem starts to die back leave them for a while for the tubers to mature. The potatoes are ready to harvest. It is possible to store them in a potato cellar if there is one as they kept for the winter season. I have a small garden and I don’t have much room to grow excess of it. The leaves of the potato plant are not edible something to keep in mind.
