Beginner Gardening: potatoes, 1 by Ozark

Ozark wrote:
MPL, that sounds like a good way to do it.

I figured out a little trick about growing potatoes this year, and it's working real well. In past years I've always bought big seed potatoes then cut them into pieces with a couple of eyes on each piece. Then I've followed every instruction I've ever read and left the pieces out to dry those cuts for a few days, then planted my potatoes.

Every year I've done this I've had some potatoes fail to sprout, and digging into those spots I've found the cut seed potatoes had rotted in the ground. I'd have a few sickly-looking plants too, which upon digging were found to be growing from seed potatoes that were partly rotted. We get a lot of rain here in springtime, and that combined with those cut surfaces being in contact with the microorganisms in my compost-rich soil caused problems. So, this year I did it different.

I reasoned that seed potatoes are priced by the pound anyway (29 cents per lb. for Red Pontiacs at our local market), so it's no more expensive to buy small potatoes that don't need to be cut up. I picked through the bin and bought seed potatoes that were golf ball size, planted them whole without cutting, and every one of them came up and made the healthiest-looking potato plants I've ever grown. A practice I'm going to remember and continue!