Growing Potatoes in the UK: From Chitting to Harvest

There's a reason nearly every allotment has a row or two of spuds. Potatoes are cheap to start, wildly productive for the space, and they'll put up with a good deal of beginner fumbling. If you've never grown a vegetable in your life, this is the one to cut your teeth on. Let's walk through the whole thing, from that bag of knobbly seed potatoes on the windowsill to a barrow of your own harvest in autumn.

Why are potatoes such a good first crop?

A single seed potato can give you a kilo or more of spuds, which is a lovely return for very little outlay. They don't need much in the way of kit, they crop within a few months, and the plants are vigorous enough to shrug off the odd mistake. Miss a watering, plant a bit late, forget to feed them? You'll still very likely get a crop.

They also do a quiet favour to your ground. All that digging and earthing up breaks up compacted soil and clears weeds, which is why old gardening lore has potatoes going in first on a new plot. And there's the flavour. A freshly dug new potato, boiled within the hour and slathered in butter, is a world away from anything you'll buy in a bag. Once you've tasted your own, there's no going back.

What is chitting, and when should I start?

Chitting just means letting your seed potatoes sprout before you plant them. It gives the plant a head start, which brings your crop forward by a couple of weeks. Handy for the earlies, when you're itching for that first taste of summer.

Here's how it works. Buy proper seed potatoes rather than saving supermarket spuds, which can carry disease and are often treated to stop them sprouting. Stand them in an old egg box or a seed tray with the end that has the most little dents, the "eyes", facing up. Then pop them somewhere cool, light and frost-free. A bright windowsill in an unheated spare room or a porch is ideal.

Timing-wise, late winter is your moment, so think February, or thereabouts. Over the next four to six weeks the eyes will push out short, sturdy, greenish shoots. You're aiming for stubby sprouts around 2cm long. If they go long, pale and spindly, they've had too little light, so move them somewhere brighter.

Which type should I grow, and when do I plant in the UK?

Seed potatoes come in three broad groups, and the difference is all about timing. Pick based on what you want and how much space you have.

First earlies are your new potatoes. Plant them from mid to late March and you'll be lifting small, waxy, delicious spuds around 10 to 12 weeks later, so roughly June into early July. They take up the ground for the shortest time, which makes them perfect for small plots and containers.

Second earlies go in from early to mid April and follow on in July and August. They're a nice halfway house, giving you slightly bigger potatoes without hogging the ground all season.

Maincrop are the big fellas, the ones you store for winter. Plant them through April and they'll be ready from late August into October, after 15 to 20 weeks in the ground. They give the heaviest crop, but they need the most space and, as we'll see, they're the ones most likely to catch blight.

Timings shift a little with where you live. If you're up north or in Scotland, nudge everything a week or two later than a grower in the mild south west. Your local weather is a better guide than any calendar.

How do I plant potatoes in the ground?

Potatoes aren't fussy, but they do like an open, sunny spot and soil that isn't waterlogged. If you can work in some well-rotted compost or manure beforehand, all the better. A good homemade compost is exactly the kind of thing they love.

1. 1

   Dig your trench or holes

   Make a trench or individual planting holes around 10 to 15cm deep. If you're doing a row, a shallow trench is quickest.

2. 2

   Space them out

   Set earlies about 30cm apart, and maincrop a bit more generously at around 40cm, with a good gap of 45 to 75cm between rows so you have room to earth up.

3. 3

   Pop them in, shoots up

   Place each seed potato with its chitted sprouts pointing upward, being careful not to knock them off.

4. 4

   Cover and water

   Draw the soil back over to fill the trench, water if the ground is dry, and then wait for the shoots to break the surface.

5. 5

   Earth up as they grow

   When the leafy shoots reach about 15 to 20cm, mound soil up around the stems, leaving just the top few centimetres poking out. Repeat every few weeks.

That earthing up bit matters more than beginners expect. It does two important jobs. It protects tender young shoots from a late frost, and, crucially, it keeps the developing tubers buried and away from light. Skip it and you'll find green spuds near the surface, which you can't eat. More on that shortly.

How do I grow potatoes in bags or containers?

No garden? No problem. Potatoes are one of the best crops for a patio, balcony or small yard, and growing them in bags is genuinely easy. You can use a purpose-made potato grow bag, a big tub, or even a sturdy compost sack with a few drainage holes punched in the bottom.

The method is simple. Half-fill your bag with good multipurpose compost. Sit your seed potatoes on top, roughly three tubers to a 35 to 40 litre bag, or think one per 30cm of width, then cover them with about 15cm of compost. As the shoots grow, keep adding more compost around them, the same idea as earthing up in the ground, until the bag is nearly full. This buries more stem, and more buried stem means more potatoes.

A grow bag on the patio can turn a couple of forgotten corners into a proper supper, and there's nothing quite like tipping the whole lot out to see what you've grown.

The one thing containers won't forgive is drying out. Bags heat up and lose moisture far faster than open ground, so in summer you may need to water every single day. Keep the compost consistently damp but not swampy, and give the plants a liquid feed every week or two once they're growing strongly. Earlies are the best choice for bags, since they crop quickly and don't need to sit around through blight season.

What problems should I watch for?

Most of the time potatoes look after themselves, but a few things are worth knowing about.

Blight is the big one in our damp climate. It's a disease that races through the foliage in warm, humid weather, usually from late June onwards, turning leaves brown and mushy and eventually rotting the tubers. Maincrop are most at risk because they're still growing when blight peaks. If you spot it, cut off all the top growth immediately and bin it (don't compost it), then leave the tubers in the ground a couple of weeks before lifting. Growing earlies is the simplest way to dodge blight altogether, as they're often harvested before it takes hold.

Scab causes rough, corky patches on the skin. It's cosmetic, the potatoes are perfectly fine to eat once peeled, and it's more common on dry, limy soils.

Frost can blacken early foliage if a cold snap catches new shoots. Keep a length of horticultural fleece handy in spring and throw it over on frosty nights, or simply earth up over the shoots to protect them.

When and how do I harvest and store them?

With earlies, the cue is flowering. Once the plants are in flower, have a gentle scrape under one to check the size, and if you're happy, lift the whole plant with a fork, digging well clear of the stems so you don't spear your dinner. Earlies don't store, so lift them as you need them and eat them fresh.

Maincrop are for keeping. When the foliage yellows and dies back in autumn, cut it off at ground level and leave the tubers in the soil for around two weeks to firm up their skins. Then lift them on a dry day, let them dry off for a few hours, and set aside any that are damaged to eat first.

Store the sound ones in paper or hessian sacks, never plastic, somewhere cool, dark and airy. A frost-free shed, garage or unheated room sitting at around 4 to 7°C is ideal. Kept like this, a good maincrop will happily see you through four to six months of winter. Check the sacks now and then and pull out any that have gone soft.

And that's the whole cycle. Fancy trying something else next? Head back to our Grow hub for more crops to have a go at.