Planting Potatoes in Raised Beds: A Step By Step Guide

Preparing Your Raised Beds

A successful harvest includes picking the right location, the right type of soil, and soil depth. The beds can be different depths, have boxed-in sides or open or closed bottoms, or simply be mounds of soil. Though we have a few boxed-in beds with wire bottoms, most of our beds are mounded soil on open ground without permanent sides. Here are pointers:

• Depth: If you have a bed with a closed bottom, ensure it is at least 12 inches deep and has good drainage. Metal watering troughs make excellent raised beds once you have drilled drainage holes in the bottom.
• Full Sun: Whatever type of bed you choose to construct, make sure it is in a spot that gets full sun for at least 6 hours a day.
• Fluffy Soil: Potatoes do best when planted in light, fluffy, well-draining soil on the slightly acidic side, as mentioned above. Dig in some compost or aged (not fresh) manure for additional organic matter, and do a soil test before planting to make any recommended adjustments. 

Selecting the Seed Potatoes

For the best outcome, purchase seed potatoes at your local garden center or, for more variety, order from a mail-order company that specializes in seed potatoes. Note: They are not actual seeds but small potatoes, especially suited for planting, that have been certified to be free of disease pathogens, unlike the sprouted spuds in your kitchen. 

Generally, the same potato varieties can be used for raised beds and in-ground rows. What’s more important is to select a potato type that suits your climate and the length of the growing season.  

• For an early-yielding, all-purpose potato, look for Yukon Gold or Superior.
• Fingerlings are waxy and great for roasting; our favorite is high-yielding Austrian Crescent.
• Try taters with colored skin, such as ‘Red Norland’ or blue ‘Caribe’, for boiling.
• Some varieties, such as ‘Adirondack Blue’, ‘Purple Majesty’, or ‘Yukon Gem’, have not only colored skin but also colored flesh; fun for salads.
• Like a dry, mealy baking potato? Go for a russet potato like ‘Caribou’, ‘Goldrush’, or ‘Rio Grande Russet’.

Planting the Potatoes

1. Pre-sprout your seed potatoes a week or two before planting by spreading them out in a cool bright spot to green up and develop short, strong sprouts that won’t break off when planting. This is called “chitting.”
2. Plant small potatoes, about the size of a hen’s egg, whole. Cut the larger ones into pieces with at least two sprouts each. Let the cut pieces dry for a day or two before planting potatoes in raised beds to prevent rotting.
3. Time to dig! Depending on the width of your bed, you can usually make at least two 6-inch deep trenches, spaced 1 foot apart, down the length of the bed. Pile the soil along the edges of the trench to use later.
4. Space one potato every 12 inches, sprouts up, and cover with an inch or two of soil. The number of potatoes you can plant is based on this spacing; do not crowd.

Caring for Potatoes in a Raised Bed 

1. As the sprouts grow, gently add the reserved soil from digging the trenches to the base of the plants. This is called “hilling.” Instead of hilling with soil, you can use weed-free straw piled thickly enough around the base of the plants to keep sunlight from reaching the developing spuds. They need to grow in the dark to prevent them from turning green. Green potatoes are not edible.
2. Add straw. As long as mice, voles, and chipmunks are not a problem in your area, using straw works well and makes for easy harvesting.
3. Tending the bed. Be sure your potato plants get an inch of water a week, whether from rainfall or irrigation.
4. Keep an eye out for striped potato beetles and hand-pick or knock them off into a container of soapy water to keep them from eating your plants. Inspect your plants regularly for orange eggs and crush them before hatching them into disgusting larvae. The larvae will make a meal from the leaves, stressing or killing the plants before they can make any spuds.

Harvesting

After the plants have flowered, you can gently dig around the base of a plant or two for small new potatoes, a delicious treat! Otherwise, let the plants grow until the tops die down in late summer/early fall before digging up your long-awaited crop of fresh, organically-grown potatoes.

Digging up the taters: A garden fork is the perfect tool for lifting the buried spuds, but try to avoid spearing them. If that happens, just set the pierced ones aside to eat first. 

Storing your spuds. To help them develop thick skin for longer storage life, spread your potatoes out in a dark, dry place for a week or more to cure. Don’t bother washing potatoes; they keep longer if left unwashed. We place ours in trays and cover them with newspaper to keep out any light. You don’t want them to turn green and become inedible. Gently brush off excess dirt and store them in a cool, dry, dark place. 

Tips for a Successful Potato Harvest

1. Soil is the key. Growing potatoes in your raised beds will give you control over the soil. You can tailor it to their needs, which is essential if you have heavy clay, compacted, poorly-drained, or infertile soil. A raised bed allows you to create a loose, loamy soil in which potatoes thrive. Potatoes in raised beds should never be planted in wet soil. Wait until the spring soil has dried out. For my location, planting is mid-May. Get a soil thermometer and plant as soon as the soil is 50°F. Plant early in the morning.
2. Disease prevention. A soil pH of 4.8-5.4 will discourage potato scab from forming. Avoid adding fresh manure, lime, or wood ashes, which would alter the pH and increase the chances of scabby potatoes. What is scab, you ask? It is a plant disease that produces rough, dark patches on the surface of the potato. The damage is cosmetic and doesn’t usually affect yield. The spuds are still edible after you cut the spots off.
3. Quick start. Potatoes are planted before your last frost. Raised beds will warm up faster in the spring, enabling you to plant earlier than you could in a ground-level bed. You don’t have to worry about late spring frosts because the soil will protect your little spuds.
4. Easy to dig. Your perfectly prepared potato bed will be easy to dig in, which you will appreciate when it comes to planting and harvesting.
5. Bigger harvest. In many side-by-side experiments, potatoes grown in raised beds are often larger and have higher yields than those grown in open rows or containers. We recommend organic seed potatoes for a better harvest because they haven’t been treated with chemicals, making them more resilient and disease-resistant.

Potatoes are an easy and rewarding crop, whether in a raised bed, in a container, or in the ground. I’ve even planted in grow bags.

Check out our complete Growing Guide to Potatoes for more information.