Planting potatoes on St. Patrick's Day

Not long ago, Joanie, one of our treasured blog readers said she once knew a gardener who always planted his potatoes on St. Patrick's Day -- and he always had a good crop. I know in Georgia potato planting time is certainly upon us. Because of the rain, we haven't yet planted ours since the ground has been extra soggy. I think St. Patrick's Day is a very fitting day to plant a vegetable called "Irish" potatoes. (Actually there are SO many varieties!) Can you even be Irish without eating potatoes? Maybe, but it is uncommon.

Here is our Potato planting guide, in words and photos. These potatoes were planted last year.

We bought seed potatoes, cut them into quarters and sprinkled lime over them and allowed them to sit in the lime overnight. We bought our seed potatoes at Arnalls Grocery

The soil must be well-tilled for a good start. All root crops need plenty of growing room underneath the soil line and extra tilling certainly helps.

We dug out the rows 6 to 8 inches. It is certainly not the same all the way down. We dug it out and then following behind, dug it again until it was at least 8 inches deep.

Above, the row is nice and deep, at least 8 inches.


We placed organic fertilizer in the bottom of the row. We mixed our fertilizers to approximately 10-10-10. Since we are using organic fertilizer, it is hard to get the exact mix, but putting different fertilizers together gives us something like an all-purpose mixture. After that, we covered the fertilizer with about an inch of dirt. Adding in seasoned manure is also a good idea.

We then put some bone meal in the spots where we are planning to place the potatoes.

The potatoes are placed along each side so they would have extra room to grow.

The next step is to cover them with dirt.

And now we wait.

After the plants sprout and grow above the soil, it is a good idea to mulch around them to prevent weeds from "stealing" the nutrients from the potatoes.

It is now time to go home and make corned beef and cabbage.