Q: Why was the potato not the first vegetable I tried to grow?
A: Because it wasn't my favourite vegetable. I liked kale and turnips -- so I tried those first. Looking back, I fared well in my first year, but I know that I would have been more satified with something that was easier and more rewarding.
I highly recommend growing potatoes to new gardeners who want to grow vegetables. Not only are they dead easy to grow in most areas, they are also great for the garden soil, or at least the digging you will need to do to get them out is! Growing potatoes is an excellent way to prepare the vegetable garden for growing other crops next year.
In this article I will cover the bare-bones basics for growing potatoes. Once you've read it, and you want more information, I recommend the following site as a potato-growing mecca.
Growing Potatoes
This site provides in-depth information on a variety of potato growing concerns.
Firstly, potatoes need to be rotation planted. This means that a spot used for potatoes one year should be used for another crop the following year. Furthermore, this spot should not be planted with any other Solanaceaeous crop, such as tomatoes, eggplants or peppers. If the rotation planting concept is new to you, I suggest you read Travis Saling's article called Planning and the Vegetable Garden from Edible Gardening on Suite101. Travis covers this and other vegetable garden design concerns.
Why bother with rotation planting? If you don't, any of the following problems could be yours next year...Early Potato Blight, Blackleg, Bacterial Wilt, Late Blight, Pink Rot, Ring Rot, Scurf and Stem Rot, Several Mosiacs. I hope that some of the descriptions used for these diseases will scare you into rotation planting.
Choose a spot with lots of sun and good drainage. In wet areas, a sloped garden is ideal. If the soil is very poor, amend with well-rotted manure or compost, and rock phospate.
Start your potato patch 2 to 4 weeks before the last spring frost.
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