Testing Popular Potato-Growing Methods: Which is Best?
Epic Gardening founder and owner Kevin Espiritu tried seven different potato growing methods to see which is best. The answer may surprise you! Whether you have lots of space or a few containers, you can use these methods to grow abundant potato harvests.
Contents
Every gardener has hacks, tricks, and habits that work well in the garden. Some are tried and tested, while others are discovered through the simple act of experimentation. When it comes to methods for growing potatoes, these hacks are a dime a dozen. There are too many to count!
That’s why Epic Gardening founder Kevin Espiritu tried the most popular potato-growing methods himself in his San Diego garden. Using seven different strategies, he tallied which performed the best and how much each yielded. Though there were some hiccups along the way, he found success with multiple growing methods.
You can also successfully grow potatoes, whether you have containers, raised beds, or acres of fields to plant in. No garden is too small for tasty tubers!
Popular Potato-Growing Methods
Using traditional and new growing approaches, Kevin planted potatoes in multiple ways. He cut some in half and planted those, while also burying whole tubers. He used grow bags, buckets, and in-ground beds to find which method is the best for home gardeners.
5-Gallon Bucket
For growers with patios, porches, or balconies, a 5-gallon bucket works well for potatoes. You’ll plant tubers in the bottom, cover them with a bit of soil, and let them sprout. As they grow upwards, you’ll cover their stems with more soil to promote tubers to form on them.
Kevin had worse results with a 5-gallon bucket than with any of the other methods, though he forgot to drill holes in the bottom. With proper drainage, it’s safe to assume he might’ve found higher yields. He also noticed that the sides of the bucket prevented sunlight from reaching the plants. Consider tipping or tilting the buckets until the plants are tall enough to poke out the top.
So, if you’re using a 5-gallon bucket, drainage is crucial! Drill holes in the bottom before planting your seed potatoes. Maintain an evenly moist, not soggy soil culture throughout the season.
Grow Bag
Like the 5-gallon bucket method, grow bags led to low yields in Kevin’s garden. He faced the opposite issue—a dry soil culture! Grow bags are made of thin fibers that let air and moisture move freely through them. If you forget to water on a hot day, the plants grow thirsty and begin to wither.
If you’re choosing to use grow bags, you’ll want to maintain consistent moisture around the tubers and their roots. Water regularly during the summer, and sometimes daily in hot climates. Use a 5-gallon or larger grow bag to give the tubers plenty of room to spread out.
Kevin found that the grow bag lips, like the 5-gallon bucket walls, prevented sunlight from reaching the potato plants inside. Curl the lips back to let sunlight in, or consider adding more soil until it reaches near the bags’ tops.
Trenched Potato
Trenching potatoes is the classic, tried-and-true growing method of all the methods. Farmers, home gardeners, and hobby growers all love this style of cultivation. Simply bury seed potatoes six to eight inches deep, one foot apart, in trenches. As the stems grow, you may “hill” them, a process where you cover the stems with soil and leave the top leaves exposed.
The trench method was wildly successful in Kevin’s garden. Planting five potatoes, he harvested 72 at the end of the season! Each plant, on average, produced 997.9 grams, or 2.2 pounds, of potatoes.
This may be why the trench method is a favorite for many gardeners and farmers. It’s easy to do, high-yielding, and simple to harvest.
12” Deep
The most surprising result came from the deep-planted potato. Kevin planted a single potato 12 inches deep, and it grew the most tubers of any other plant in the experiment! Because he planted only one tuber, this method produced an average yield of nearly four pounds per potato plant!
Though he found a large harvest, Kevin also discovered some rotting and mushy tubers. This is most likely from leaving the plants in the ground too long. It’s best to wait for the potato stems to die back before harvesting the tubers, but you don’t want to wait too long and find rotting potatoes.
If you’re curious, try this method in an area with excellent drainage. Free-draining soil and a deep burial encourage plenty of potatoes to swell along the stems.
6” Deep
With this technique, Kevin buried a single tuber like in the above method, except he planted it six inches deep. A single tuber turned into 10, weighing 1128.3 grams, or 2.5 pounds in all!
The method yielded large, well-shaped tubers without symptoms of rot or decay. It works well with the ample sunlight and warm temperatures common to San Diego.
Though not as successful as the 12-inch method, this one may work well in areas with hard clay that prevents deep plantings. Rather than waiting to amend the soil, you can bury tubers six inches below the surface and add compost on top.
Cut in Half
An age-old debate rages about whether you should plant potatoes whole or cut them in half. To see which is best, Kevin cut a single tuber into two pieces and planted them the same way as the above techniques, burying them six inches deep and a foot apart.
He found a larger yield with the two cut pieces than with the whole tuber at six inches, and smaller than the deep one at 12 inches. In total, the two cut pieces produced nearly three pounds of edible tubers!
If you are low on seed potatoes and want to extend your supply, cutting them in half is an excellent technique to further your harvest. Simply ensure each piece has two to three “eyes,” or budding shoots, and let the wound heal for a few days before planting.
Ruth Stout Method
Ruth Stout was a gardener in the late 1800s and 1900s who pioneered the famous “no-dig method”. It involves insulating and protecting the soil rather than disturbing it, and saving your spine from back-breaking work.
For potatoes, Ruth Stout advised placing them directly on the ground and covering them with hay. The hay shades the tubers and allows them to grow close to the soil surface. They’ll be easy to harvest and access during the growing season.
Though popular, this technique proved troublesome in Kevin’s garden. Pillbugs, or roly-polies as kids so affectionately call them, invaded the site. They typically eat dead organic matter, but they’ll turn to fresh veggies and fruits if they’re easily accessible. They ate the potato shoots before they could sprout from the hay.
Additionally, some of the harvested potatoes were green and sprouting shoots. Green tubers are toxic; they’re useful as seed pieces but not safe to eat. If the potatoes access sunlight, they’ll turn green, which likely happened to the ones in Kevin’s garden.
Which is the Best Method?
All in all, the 12-inch planting worked the best of the seven methods! A single tuber grew more potatoes than any of the other pieces in the experiment. The extra insulation proved beneficial, allowing the roots to spread and form new potatoes at will.
A close second-best is using trenches. The trenching planting grew large, reliably healthy tubers without rots or pests. Perhaps, the best method is a combination of the two. Trench the potatoes, bury them deep, and hill them as they sprout.
Harvesting Tips
Learning from famous potato farmer Ty Heppell of Heppell’s Potatoes in British Columbia, Kevin advises growers to let the plants die before harvesting the potatoes. This allows for the skins to thicken and set underground, which helps them resist rot in storage.
It’s also important not to puncture or sever your harvest in the process of digging it up! A potato fork or spade works well for in-ground potatoes, though you’ll want to dig deep under the plants to avoid puncturing the roots.
If you can’t wait, you may chop the plants down when they turn yellow, then harvest the underground potatoes two to four weeks later. Mark the area with a flag so you don’t forget where the plants are.
Key Takeaways
- The 12-inch deep planting style worked the best of all methods, producing the most potatoes.
- Trenching was a close second, as was a single tuber six inches deep.
- Different methods work well for different gardeners; which one is right for you may differ from which is best for Kevin.
- It’s crucial to let the plants wither away before you harvest the underground tubers. This helps them last long in storage.
