How to grow and harvest potatoes?

Growing vegetables is something that I have done all of my life especially when I was growing up. I lived on a farm and we always had two gardens year round raising so many different vegetables.

Potatoes is definitely a vegetable that goes in my garden all the time because they are easy to grow and there are many different varieties that I can choose from classed, in order of maturity, as early, main, and storage types. Another reason I like to raise potatoes is my family loves potatoes any way I fix them  and they store well and by this, that means that my potato crops will last for several months for my family and I.

When I am getting ready to start gardening, I will have my potato garden site ready and this occurs mid to later winter.

After I get my "seed potatoes" and by getting the early types of seed potatoes there is a benefit from them being pre-germinated before I plant them because this gives them a head start. Head start on seed potatoes means that I allow the "eyes" to sprout before the tubers are planted in my garden. I place the seed potatoes "rose-end" which is the end of the potatoes that has the most eyes on it upward in a egg carton, and position  it in a cool, well-lit place such as on my windowsill.

Seed potatoes can be planted in the ground in a garden or in containers. I put the potatoes in the ground in my garden. If I choose potatoes that are in the early varieties I will  plant them in my garden in early spring and then I will plant my main types of potatoes in mid-spring. I dig over all of my garden soil, get all of the weeds out and then I apply a general purpose fertilizer to my soil. After that, I dig a drill about six inches deep and then I will place my potatoes along the bottom and I space them every 18 to 30 inches apart. Then I put 8 inches of soil over the potatoes so I can create a slight mound.
Potatoes as I mention early can be grown in containers, but I have not got around to try this way out yet. This is what I will need to do, to plant my potatoes in containers. There are certain types of containers that I will have to get before I try this. the containers are specially designed potato barrels such as large tubs or plastic sacks. After I get my large tubs, I will put a 50-50 mix of garden soil and multipurpose compost, placing a six inch layer of this in the bottom of each of my tubs. The next step no matter where I have planted my potatoes is to keep them watered well and feed them by using an all-purpose granular fertilizer. All plants need to be weeded regularly and potato plants are the same, so I hoe everything. While I am weeding my potatoes, I am checking my plants regularly for potato blight.

  During the summer, I will go out to my garden and earth up my potatoes and this is what I do. I draw the soil up around the stem to leave the top 4 inches of the plant visible.

My early potatoes I will begin harvesting in early summer which generally they are ready to be lifted once their flowers develop. My main types need to be harvested in late summer or early fall, so this way I will be able to have potatoes for awhile. I use a hoe to harvest my potatoes by lifting the soil-grown plants, making sure I do not damage the tubers.

I will like to talk about a few different varieties of potatoes. "Yukon Gold" is a early variety potato and it has a great flavor and it is used baked, boiled as a new potato, roasted or mashed. "Pink Fir Apple" is a heirloom main crop potato, this potato produces red skinned and ]knobby tubers that has a great flavor to them. It is a potato that is grown as a salad potato. "Belle De Fontenay" is a salad potato and it is an early main crop variety and the yield of tubers is good, and the flesh is yellow and waxy. These are many more different varieties of potatoes that I did not talk about.