When to plant potatoes?
- Botanical name
- Solanum tuberosum
- Family
- Solanaceae
Potatoes are planted outdoors from March to May, 15 cm deep. They are harvested from June to October.
Potatoes are annual plants. The edible parts are the tubers.
Potatoes through the year
- outdoor planting
- harvest
In short
The last frost is not on the same day everywhere, so the recorded weeks are a guide and not a date.
Growing conditions
Companions in the bed
Companion planting is tradition and not an agronomic claim. What is recorded is which pairs sources recommend and which they advise against.
A row of garlic is set among the potatoes against visiting game.
Mint runs through a bed and after two years you will not get it out, so plant it in a pot sunk into the bed.
- “Cited” means the pair is named by one source or two.
Pests and diseases
Listed here is every problem for which the sources name this plant as a host. The problems are not listed in order of how common they are.
Colorado potato beetle
pest- Signs
- Adult beetles and reddish larvae eat the leaves until nothing is left of the plant but bare stems. Once the foliage runs out they start on the stems as well. The yellow eggs sit in tight clusters on the underside of the leaves. The larvae and the beetles eat the tubers as well.
- Prevention
- Keep to a rotation, because the beetle overwinters in the soil exactly where the attacked crop stood. Lay a thick straw mulch, which makes its way to the plants harder and draws in predators. Look for the egg clusters early, while there are few of them.
- What to do
- Collect and destroy beetles, larvae and egg clusters, often and early in the season. Put the fleece on before the beetles come out of the soil. The aubergine is the beetle's favourite host and can be planted as a trap crop.
European corn borer
pest- Signs
- Small entry holes in the stem with borings that look like sawdust. Above them the foliage wilts or the stem snaps.
- Prevention
- In autumn remove or shred the stems in which the caterpillars overwinter: cut them off at ground level and mulch them, plough them in or carry them off the bed. This is the strongest measure, because it takes the pest's winter quarters away.
- What to do
- Split the attacked stem below the entry hole and destroy the caterpillar. On a small bed this is workable and more precise than spraying, which does not reach a caterpillar inside a stem anyway.
Flea beetles
pest- Signs
- The leaves are riddled with small round holes, as if somebody had peppered them with shot. Touched, the beetles jump. Young plants with such leaves stall or die, older ones grow through the damage.
- Prevention
- Clear away the plant debris in which the beetles overwinter. Cover the bed with fleece right after sowing or planting and leave it until the plants are strong. Keep the soil moist, because a dry warm spring is the worst case.
- What to do
- Pin fleece down at the edges, which is the main measure. In autumn or early spring loosen the top layer of soil to cut down the number of overwintering beetles.
Late blight
disease- Signs
- On the leaves and stems there are dark, watery blotches, spreading fast until the leaf browns and dies. On the underside of a blotch there is a white down. On the fruit there are firm, olive brown patches. In cold wet weather the plant collapses in a few days.
- Prevention
- Plant healthy stock and keep to the rotation. Give the plants a wider spacing and an airy site. Water under the leaves, never over the foliage. Remove diseased plants as they show and take them out of the garden, not onto the compost. Choose resistant varieties.
Slugs and snails
pest- Signs
- Holes appear in the middle of the leaf rather than along the edge, young plants are eaten down to the ground, and there are slimy trails in the morning. On low-growing fruit there are gnawed pits.
- Prevention
- Remove the hiding places beside the bed: boards, stones, dense weeds. Water in the morning and not in the evening, so that the night is dry. Spread a band of coarse sand or gravel around the bed. Cover young plants with fleece. Pick them off at night, which is still the most effective measure.
Keep track of your plants with Tendask
Log the task and set a reminder for the next one. Every plant keeps its own history, so there is nothing to guess at.
Related plants
The plants below are in the same botanical family (Solanaceae).
Sources about the plant: GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, KGZS Zavod Ljubljana, KGZS Zavod Nova Gorica, NC State Extension Plant Toolbox, Royal Horticultural Society, Smernice za strokovno utemeljeno gnojenje (Mihelič et al., MKGP 2011), Utah State University Extension, Wikidata. Checked between 14 and 28 August 2026. The problem descriptions also draw on: Clemson Cooperative Extension, EPPO Global Database, University of Maryland Extension, University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension.