Potatoes are one of the easiest crops to grow—they can succeed in everything from trash bags to straw bales. These are some practical, no-BS potato growing hacks will help you develop healthier plants and a bigger, better harvest. Let’s get growing!
🥔 Tip 1: Pre-sprout (chit) your seed potatoes
Let them sit in a warm spot for 2–3 weeks until strong green sprouts form . This cuts ~2 weeks off your harvest time!
🌱 Tip 2: Plant in raised mounds, not trenches
Make a mound above ground level and place your seed potato right on top of the soil, not in a hole.
This keeps it from sitting in pooled water and rotting during heavy rain. As the plant grows, add more soil to cover the stem—this “hilling” encourages more potatoes to grow off the buried stem.
♻️ Tip 3: Load up the compost
Potatoes love nutrient-rich soil. Add compost or aged manure to feed them the natural way.
💧 Tip 4: Water deep and steady
You should be giving 1–2” of water per week to your potatoes, ideally deep and infrequent. Avoid extremes—dry spells followed by soaking = cracked potatoes.
🧣 Tip 5: Use cloth covers for a head start
Our farm has used this method for decades to be one of the first to market!
The cloth acts like a greenhouse—warming the soil, speeding up growth, and protecting young plants from wind and cold.
Watch How We Do It
🧺 Tip 6: Don’t wash them right away
Washing your potatoes right after harvest can reduce shelf life. Let them cure (dry) in a cool dark spot for a week or two first.
🧑🌾 Bonus Pro Tip: Rotate your potato patch!
To avoid disease, don’t replant potatoes in the same spot every year. Wait 3–4 years before returning to the same area.
We don’t give away our growing secrets often, but we’re excited to share what’s worked for us.
If you’ve ever wondered what makes Heppell’s potatoes so good, this is part of the answer. Now it’s your turn to give them a shot!
📹 Watch the Full Video 📹
Comment your questions and progress down below!