The A-Z of Growing Potatoes (2026 edition)
Here is our A to Z of Growing Potatoes:
A: Alouette is our new favourite, an early blight resistant variety, Arran Victory is a high yielding, heritage variety.
B: Blight resistance is important, check when ordering your seed potatoes.
C: Chitting your seed potatoes in a bright, airy space at around 15C can bring forward the harvest and increases the yield.
D: Dustbins and other containers can be used to successfully grow potatoes in containers.
E: Earthing up the young green shoots (for indeterminate varieties) with a hoe increases the yield.
F: Floury potatoes are higher in starch than waxy potatoes and are often favoured by Irish people.
G: Great for beginners, potatoes are pioneer plants, that are often at the beginning of cultivating soil.
H: Healthy, no question: Potatoes contain five times less calories than rice or pasta and on the other hand twice as much protein than wheat. They are full of Vitamin C and higher in potassium than bananas.
I: Irish people often plant potatoes on St. Patricks Day on March 17th, but this tradition is not based on garden knowledge. It is much better to plant potatoes when the soil has warmed up to about 7-10 C.
J: James Joyces Bloom has a potato in his pocket before he sets off on his epic journey through Dublin, apparently it holds some talismanic power.
K: Kartoffelsalat (potato salad) in Germany is made with waxy potatoes like Charlotte and is getting more and more popular here, hardly any party without it!
L: Lazy bed method: This involves laying out a line of manure or compost a foot wide, placing potatoes along it at 30cm intervals and flipping sods of earth on top of them, using a spade, ideally a loy.
M: Madden, Lucy is the author of The Potato Year – 365 ways of cooking potatoes.
N: NASA and the Peru-based International Potato Centre (CIP) will start cultivating potatoes in Mars-like conditions on Earth, with the hope of eventually building a controlled dome on Mars capable of farming the ancient crop.
O: Once every 0.6 seconds someone buys potatoes in Ireland, according to Kantar, a retail-analysis firm.
P: Purple Rain and Purple Majesty are blue potatoes worth growing, because they are not widely available.
Q: Question : How many? Klaus Laitenberger in his book “The Self-Sufficient Garden” says “A total of 32 square meters produces 168kg of potatoes or around 3.5kg per week for 11 month.”
R: Rooftop grown potatoes on JFK airport in New York feature blue potatoes, watch out for them on tour next trip to the USA.
S: Sarvari Research Trust (SRT) is the organisation that breeds new, disease resistant varieties of potato that are traded by Sarpo Potatoes Ltd (SPL). At its core is one of the UK’s leading experts on late blight of potato, Dr David Shaw.
T: Tortillas is the Spanish way to cook with potatoes, they are also great in tapas (Patatas Bravas).
U: Under cover growing in polytunnels works well for early varieties, producing great NEW potatoes as early as June and avoiding the blight problems.
V: There are about 5,000 potato varieties worldwide. 3000 of them are found in the Andes alone, mainly in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, and Colombia. Apart from the 5,000 cultivated varieties, there are about 200 wild species, many of which can be cross-bred with cultivated varieties to transfer resistances to certain pests and diseases.
W: The key time to water is just before the foliage canopy closes over between the rows. If you water at this time, you will get the best response from the potatoes and they will bulk up well.
X: Xanthippe, wife of Socrates, favoured the spud-love –apple as an aphrodisiac.
Y: Potato crops can yield up to four times more than wheat, depending on the variety and growing conditions.
Z: The Zen of just peeling potatoes.