By David Marks
First of all, get the timing correct for growing potatoes. If you start your potatoes off too early they will suffer from damp and cold soil. Starting them off too late is not such a problem but your potatoes will mature later than you want. The key to growing potatoes is to start them off at the correct time of year.

One thing is absolutely certain, the dates for growing potatoes on the South Coast of the UK are quite different from many cooler Northern areas. Any
book or website which does not take this into account is unlikely to provide you with the correct dates.

To get round this problem of timing we provide a feature on this website which allows you to adjust all the dates automatically depending on the climate in your area. Click here (or top right of all pages in this website) and spend 20 seconds to automatically adjust every date on this site to be correct for your climate. If you don’t adjust the dates they will be assumed to be average for the UK

Now we know your climate, we can time the various potato growing tasks correctly for your area. Simply click on any subject area at the bottom of this page to be taken to a page which will explain in clear and simple language what you need to do and when you need to do it. All gardening terms (e.g. chitting) will be fully explained with lots of pictures to help you on your way.

Before you do that though, we provide you with a quick guide to growing potatoes throughout the gardening year. It’s very simple to understand and of course is accurate for your area if you have used our
gardening date adjuster.

POTATO GROWING CALENDAR FOR THE AVERAGE UK AREA

Start chitting /sprouting your potatoes in
the third week of February

Plant out your sprouted potatoes in
the fourth week of March

Fortnightly nitrogen feed (e.g. Growmore) from
the second week of May
to
the fourth week of June

Fortnightly potash feed (e.g. tomato fertiliser) from
the second week of June to
early August

Earth up your potatoes when the foliage is about 10cm / 4in above ground

Water as needed if the weather is very dry.

Potatoes do have a temperature range they prefer, however there is very little the average gardener can do to control this. Ideally they prefer a soil temperature somewhere around 20C / 68F. A soil temperature above 30C / 86F will cause development problems.