Even if it sounds confusing at first - potatoes are being sown. Not with seeds from a bag. No, when sowing potatoes in the garden, seed potatoes are placed in furrows. Seed potatoes are potatoes about 3 cm in size from whose germs the potato plant grows.
How do you sow potatoes correctly?
To sow potatoes correctly, place seed potatoes in 10 cm deep furrows 30 cm apart and shoots upward. Then add compost as fertilizer, cover the furrows with soil and water them carefully. Regular hilling is important to promote potato growth.
Get seed potatoes
You can get seed potatoes at the garden center or via garden mail order. By pre-germinating the potatoes about two to four weeks before sowing, you can accelerate the growth of the tubers.
The sowing of early potatoes begins in March. Mid-early and late potatoes are sown from mid-April to the end of May.
Prepare the bed
The bed for the potatoes is dug up in the fall. In spring, break up the clods with a cultivator and rake the ground smooth. With the cultivator handle you can draw furrows about 10 cm deep with a row spacing of at least 60 cm.
Sowing potatoes step by step
- Place seed potatoes in the furrow at a distance of 30 cm
- the shoots must point upwards
- apply rotted compost over the seeds as fertilizer
- Rake furrows loosely with soil
- water carefully so that the soil is not washed away
Don’t forget to pile up
Potatoes definitely need to be piled up. This not only protects against frost, but also against light and the formation of green spots caused by the toxic solanine.
The first hilling is done immediately after sowing by raking up soil over the furrow to form a ridge. When the first shoots emerge later, a new layer of earth is piled on top.
Until the potatoes bloom, repeat the hilling every 2 weeks until the hill is about 30 cm high. Especially if the dam is eroded by heavy rain, it needs to be piled up again.
Tips & Tricks
A polytunnel protects early potatoes in particular from frost. A positive side effect: the air warms up under the film and promotes growth. Cheap polytunnels (€76.00 on Amazon) are available as kits from garden shops.
