Arctic Gardens: Time to plant those potatoes

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Planting season is upon us, and if you haven’t put in your potatoes, it’s time.

I know of four ways to grow potatoes, and I’ve tried them all. Traditional planting is putting the tuber in the ground and mounding soil on top. Harvesting involves a treasure hunt, digging through the garden to find where the potatoes might have grown (it’s honestly kind of fun).

There’s also the “lazy way” to grow potatoes. This is putting seed potatoes basically on top of the ground or just shallowly in the dirt and covering them with dirt or straw. This method makes for simple planting, but harvesting still involves digging in the dirt (again, still fun).

Method number three is growing potatoes in containers. I’ve had little success with this. Dohnn Wood plants 20 containers with potatoes and grows 200 to 300 pounds of potatoes.

“We try and only plant certified seed because it’s better for the long-term health of all of the potatoes in the state, because we don’t want to increase the opportunity for disease to spread,” Dohnn said.

Dohnn’s method is pretty straightforward, but the size of the pot you’re growing in matters. He uses Number 10 pots that hold about eight to nine gallons, but a five-gallon bucket will work.

He fills the pot with six inches of soil, adds 1/4 cup of all-purpose fertilizer, then buries his potatoes — eyes up — about five inches in the soil and covers them up. He makes it sound pretty doable.

“You can go to the store and buy potting mix, which is this loamy soil,” said Dohnn. Get seed potatoes from a reputable source and “grab a five-gallon bucket, drill holes in it, fill it six inches, put a potato in. Cover it. Water it in and you’ll have one potato will make five to ten next year’s potatoes.”

Now, the fourth way to grow potatoes is a potato tower. I’ve had pretty good success with those. This involves layering straw, soil and potatoes to fill the tower. By mid-summer, the leaves of the potato plant will poke out through the openings in the tower. It’s fun to build, works well in a confined space, and when it’s time to harvest, like the containers, you just tip it over, and the potatoes are right there.

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