How long does it take for potatoes to grow?

If you’re like me as soon as you plant your seed potatoes you’re already anticipating the harvest of tender tubers. However, potatoes are a long season crop and you’ll have to practice patience. So how long does it take for potatoes to grow? Generally the potato growing season is three to four months, but there are a few strategies you can do to encourage an early harvest. In this article you’ll learn about the different types of potatoes, which ones grow the fastest, and discover six ways to speed up the homegrown harvest.

Types of potatoes

Potatoes are categorized according to the length of their growing season. To ensure the longest season of homegrown spuds, I plant a mixture of these three types.

• Early season – Early varieties of potatoes, also called first early or new potatoes, are ready to harvest 70 to 90 days from planting. Most have thin skin which doesn’t need to be peeled. Early season potatoes include Norland and Superior.
• Mid-season – Expect to start digging mid-season potatoes 90 to 110 days after planting. Mid-season varieties include Yukon Gold, French Fingerling, and Chieftain.
• Late season – Also called maincrop potatoes or storage potatoes, these varieties need a long growing season and are harvested 110 to 130 days after planting. This is the type to grow if you wish to store your potatoes. Popular late season potatoes include All Blue, Butte, and Kennebec.

When buying seed potatoes from a farm supply store, garden centre, or catalog, you’ll see that there are many different varieties of potato to choose from. Skin colors vary as does the flesh color and tuber shape and size. I’m partial to Yukon Gold which has yellow flesh, but I also love purple fleshed potatoes, like All Blue too. They’re so much fun to grow and eat.

Potato growth stages

To help you better understand the question ‘how long does it take for potatoes to grow’ let’s look closer at the different potato growth stages.

• Stage 1: Emergence – Emergence takes 2 to 4 weeks after you plant seed potatoes. It’s the stage where the plants break through the soil and start to grow.
• Stage 2: Vegetative growth and tuber formation – Once the potato plants emerge through the soil it doesn’t take long for tubers to start forming. This process begins 2 to 4 weeks after emergence.
• Stage 3: Tuber bulking – This is phase where the tubers begin to size up and takes place 6 to 12 weeks after emergence. This is also when the plants flower and, depending on the variety, the blooms will be white, pink, or purple. It’s essential to irrigate deeply and regularly during this stage to ensure the plant has enough water for good tuber development.
• State 4: Tuber maturity – Approximately 12 to 16 weeks after the plants first emerge the tubers are fully mature and ready to harvest.

How long does it take for potatoes to grow?

It’s not just the type of seed potato you buy that affects how long it takes for potatoes to grow. How you plant can also impact the growing season. The three main ways to plant seed potatoes are in an in-ground garden, a raised bed, or a container. More on each of these below.

How long does it take for potatoes to grow in an in-ground garden?

I live in a region where spring weather is often cold and wet and that is not ideal for establishing potatoes. If you plant in cold wet soil, sprouting will be delayed or the seed potatoes may rot. So if I’m planting in one of my in-ground beds I wait until the weather has warmed and the soil has had a chance to dry out. This often means a delay of a week or two to the planting season.

That said potatoes do well in in-ground garden beds that are sited in full sunlight and have loose, well-draining soil. Using a hoe, I make a 4 to 6 inch deep trench, adding organic matter. After planting, I water the bed well. To sum up, the answer to how long does it take for potatoes to grow in an in-ground garden is 70 to 130 days, depending on the type and variety.

How long does it take for potatoes to grow in raised beds?

Raised beds offer many advantages to the gardener as they warm up early in spring, have loose deep soil, and provide excellent drainage. I like growing potatoes in raised beds as I can get the tubers in the ground a few weeks earlier than my in-ground beds. This gives me a head start on the growing season.

However, assuming the same variety of potato is planted in an in-ground garden and a raised bed, you can expect to harvest the tubers around the same time. That means waiting 70 to 130 days from planting.

How long does it take potatoes to grow in containers?

If you garden in a small spaces or on a deck or patio you can plant seed potatoes in containers. Growing potatoes in pots is easy to do, but the yields are generally smaller than potatoes grown in gardens. There are many types of containers that can be used for potatoes. These include plastic pots, fabric bags, old barrels, and potato towers. Even a five gallon bucket makes a good container for growing potatoes, but you’ll need to add drainage holes to the bottom.

Growing potatoes in containers allows you to control the soil quality and, because the container is exposed to sunlight, the growing mix also heats up quicker than garden soil. This promotes healthy, fast growth, but it means you need to stay on top of watering. It’s also important to pick the right potato variety for containers. Early season potatoes are ready before later varieties, but they yield a smaller crop. Mid-season and late-maturity varieties are best because they produce tubers over a longer period. Expect container grown potatoes to take 90 to 130 days before they’re ready to harvest, depending on the variety. Learn more about growing potatoes in containers in our short video.

How to make potatoes grow faster: 6 easy strategies

Impatient for your potato crop? While you can’t make potato plants grow at warp speed, there are a few things you can do to to encourage an early crop and healthy plants.

1. Plant certified disease-free seed potatoes. Potatoes are prone to a wide range of plant diseases, like late blight and early blight, as well as viral diseases. Buying certified seed potatoes is an important step in preventing potato diseases. Don’t plant grocery store potatoes which are not certified disease free and may have been treated with sprout-inhibitors.
2. Chit your seed potatoes. Chitting, or sprouting, seed potatoes isn’t necessary for a successful crop, but it can give you a week or two head start on the harvest. Place the tubers in egg cartons in a cool to room temperature spot with bright light. Do this about a month before you intend to plant. The goal is stocky sprouts, not leggy growth.
3. Plant early maturing potatoes. Speed up the harvest by planting early season varieties that mature in 70 to 90 days.
4. Plant in the right site. Potatoes grow best when given direct sunlight, and loose fertile soil. I also add compost or rotted manure before planting to increase fertility.
5. Plant earlier. I plant my first crop 6 weeks before the last frost date and protect the bed with a mini hoop tunnel. You could also use a garden cover like a row cover or garden fleece to protect an early potato crop.
6. Feed and water. Potatoes need consistent moisture for tuber production. Deep water weekly if there has been no rain. They’re also heavy feeders and benefit from an organic granular fertilizer application when the plants are a foot tall.

More potato growing tips

Like their botanical cousins tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, potatoes are a vegetable prone to pests. Common culprits include Colorado potato beetles, aphids, and flea beetles. Promote vigorous plants and a high yield by stopping pest problems before they begin. I use insect barrier netting or row covers to reduce insect pest damage. These should be put in place at planting time with enough slack to accommodate the growth of the plants. Potatoes don’t need to be pollinated, so the covers can be left in place until harvest. If you don’t cover the plants with a protective barrier, keep an eye on your potato crop and use an insecticidal soap spray if pests are an issue.

Another important potato task is to hill or mulch the plants with soil, straw, or shredded leaves. Hill several times during the growing season to prevent the tubers from sunlight exposure. Sunlight causes the potatoes to produce high levels of solanine and turn green. Green potatoes have a bitter taste and are toxic if a large amount is ingested.

When to harvest potatoes

Now that we know the answer to ‘how long does it take potatoes to grow’, it’s important to understand when and how to harvest them. Early season potatoes, or new potatoes, are ready to dig a few weeks after flowering. The leaves will likely still be green and you can either pull the entire plants or steal a few tubers. If you leave the plants in the ground you can expect any developing tubers to still size up.

For maincrop potatoes, wait until the leaves have died back in late summer or early autumn. A few light frosts are ok, but be sure to dig the potatoes before a heavy frost or freeze. Leaving the potatoes in the ground for a week or two after the foliage browns helps thicken and mature the skins which increases their storage life. Harvest potatoes on a warm dry day. Carefully lift the tubers using a garden fork – I start about foot away from the stems and work my way in. This helps reduce the risk of stabbing a tuber with your garden fork. Oops! Leave the tubers on the soil surface to cure for a few hours and then store unblemished potatoes in a cool dark spot.

For more information on growing potatoes, check out these articles:

• When to harvest potatoes
• What to plant after potatoes
• How to plant seed potatoes in soil, straw, and pots
• How deep to plant seed potatoes

Did we answer the question ‘how long does it take for potatoes to grow?’