key growing information

Growing Potatoes: How to Plant, Hill & Harvest

How to grow potatoes from seed potatoes: soil and pH, cutting seed pieces, planting depth and spacing, hilling, planting rates, beetle control, disease prevention, harvest and storage.

By Hensley’s Seed Co. September 3, 2026

Potatoes - Key Growing Information

Box of potatoes, including russets, specialty, fingerling, heirloom, red- and blue-skinned varieties.

SCIENTIFIC NAME:

Solanum tuberosum

CULTURE:

Potatoes grow best in fertile, well-drained soil with a pH of 6.0–7.0. Cut seed potatoes into pieces of about 1½–2 oz. (1–1¼" across), each with at least one eye; small tubers can go in whole. Since potatoes tolerate cool soil and moderate frost, plant in early to mid-spring, 2–3" deep and 12" apart in rows 30–36" apart. Shoots come up 2–3 weeks later. When plants are 6–8" tall, pull soil up from both sides of the row into a ridge about 4" high to keep developing tubers from greening, and keep hilling as they grow until the ridges are about 12" high.

AVG. PLANTING RATE:

At 12" spacing: 10 lb. plants about 80–100', 110 lb. about 1,000', and roughly 1,600 lb. an acre in 36" rows.

INSECT PESTS:

Row covers are effective at keeping off Colorado potato beetles, aphids and leafhoppers. Without them, check leaf undersides for clusters of yellow-orange beetle eggs and crush them, and pick off and destroy larvae and adults. Potato beetles can also be controlled with a spinosad insecticide.

DISEASE:

Fertile soil, crop rotation and steady moisture are the best disease prevention.

HARVEST:

Small new potatoes can be dug starting about 7–8 weeks after planting. For the main crop, wait 2 weeks after the tops die back so the skins set, then dig, brush off the soil and let the skins dry before storing. Keep them somewhere dark, humid and cool but not freezing, about 40°F (4.4°C).

SPECS:

On average, 8–10 pieces per lb.; fingerlings average about 20 per lb.