We have been growing our own potatoes (a little different than most people) for many years. The only reason we started growing our own potatoes was for health reasons, but now I see even more benefits to it. Not only are they more healthy and nutrient dense with the way we grow them, but I have also calculated a significant cost savings, the flavor is amazing, and it’s nice to be able to grow and store your own food rather than relying on the world’s fragile food system that is being controlled by fewer and fewer people and the price of food continues to climb. I look forward to sharing a little bit more about this and explaining how we grow our potatoes today.
In 2019 I kept track of the amount of potatoes we harvested throughout the summer and into the fall. We started by planting over 200 pounds of seed potatoes, and I figured we harvested about 3526.5 pounds of potatoes. When I buy potatoes in bulk, I spend about 60 dollars for a 50 pound box. After some quick calculations, I calculated that one harvest saved us $4231.80 in one year. That is significant! There is an expense in buying the seed potatoes and for a little fuel, but that was less than $200.
When we started planting potatoes I didn’t know anyone doing it. I did a little research, but looking back I think I was a bit confused. I’m actually thankful for that, because I really like this system that came about more by accident. The first thing we do is prepare the soil. For us this is all planned two years in advance, but wouldn’t have to be. We put our sheep and cows on an area in the winter with hay bales spread throughout. They eat the hay and excrete their waste, and then we rest that area for a year. The next spring it gets tilled up, we plant sweet corn (this method has produced the best sweet corn), graze that lightly with pigs after it’s harvested, and finally plant potatoes there the next year.
We start the planting process by preparing the potatoes. As of this year we buy seed potatoes, but I hope to start saving my own potatoes soon. We cut the potatoes so they have at least two eyes (where the potato sprouts), then we add about 2 layers of potatoes to large boxes, containers, or whatever we can find to dry them out in the house (so they don’t rot when you plant them). They sit for 2 days. One could plant the whole potato right away, but this allows us to get more “seeds” from one potato. While the potatoes are curing, my husband prepares the soil by tilling, or more recently we have been using our tractor, to do this.
When we are ready to plant the seed potatoes, we measure in 3 feet from the edge of our garden, put a flag there, measure another 3 feet and place another flag at that point. This area in between the flags is where our potatoes will go. We measure another 3 feet which will be the space between each hill, and we continue to do this until we have all the rows we need. The next step is the most important to my husband. We make a straight (straight as long as I’m not the one in charge) line to the other end of the garden from each of the flags. We use a lot of flags to mark these straight rows, and then we take turns tilling and pulling the dirt out of the 3 feet wide area. We then place the potatoes so they are about 12 inches apart and do this all down the row. Basically we have a potato on each outer edge and one in the middle. Several people come along and scoop the dirt that was pulled out back onto the potatoes.
Except for last year, we have always tried to plant potatoes on or around Good Friday. Last year I decided to try some advice from the Farmers Almanac website and plant later, but we had much smaller potatoes. Since we experienced a drought last summer and there are so many variables each year when growing, it’s hard to know for sure what the reason for the smaller potatoes was, but we are going back to Good Friday plantings.
Planting and caring for potatoes can be a lot of work, but our family really does make the best of it. We try to make it a lot of fun (even the little ones love to hang out and help), and it really does give everyone a great feeling of accomplishment when we are done. This year I had planned to take two days to get the planting done, but we were shocked when it was done in one day (about 5 hours).
I water using an overhead sprinkler and water about every 3 days. We split up the area between myself and the older kids and once per week we each go through our own row with a hoe and carefully weed in between the potatoes. We have learned that if you stay on top of this it’s not very hard, but there have been times when we got busy and the weeds grew up pretty big. We are all in agreement that we are going to be consistent this year so our work is not so difficult. We all tend to learn a lot of lessons on the farm, and one of them is that if you put off what needs to be done today, it’s going to be more work tomorrow.
Two or three times during the growing period we will till in between the rows and put extra dirt around the growing plants. I like to do this when the weeds are small and then we don’t have to do our weekly weeding as much that week since we can cover the weeds with the dirt. As we weed and water, we also look for potato bugs and smash them or throw them in a bucket of hot soapy water. We never use any spray (even organic). I noticed last year that our ducks did a good job of eating them without destroying the plants like our chickens have done in the past.
I have purchased organic potatoes from several different sources, and I can say that I’m really disappointed in the quality and flavor after eating my own. Potatoes are very prone to diseases and bug damage. My grandparents were aerial sprayers and I remember at certain times of the year they would be expected to spray those fields every 3 days, so It’s very important to buy organic potatoes. If you want the best quality potatoes you can get, you will have to do this yourself or find a great farmer to buy from. I am sorry to say that I don’t know anyone doing this, but feel free to share in the comments if you do.
I am certainly not an expert in growing potatoes, but I share all of this because I have had so many people tell me that growing your own food doesn’t save you that much money, and it’s not worth the work. I disagree. A savings of over $4000, fresh flavorful potatoes, and learning or knowing how to grow your own food in uncertain times is worth more than gold or silver in my humble opinion.
Do you grow your own potatoes? Is it worth it you? Have you noticed a difference in the flavor? We love to hear from you!