How to regrow potatoes: Plant potatoes in 5 easy steps

If you are thinking of growing potatoes in an organic garden, we can give you some advice about this versatile tuber. Today we will see in more detail how to regrow potatoes, that is, sow them without using the seeds, but using the potatoes themselves so that the new plants grow from them.

Potatoes: what you should know

If you want to know other aspects of how to grow potatoes, such as the needs of the substrate, irrigation, or the most common potato pests and diseases, you can take a look at these other posts:

Cultivation of Potatoes (Potatoes): Garden and house

POTATO. Pests and diseases: An essential guide

This crop is very interesting because even without a garden or a large space, potatoes can be grown. We saw it in this article by Elena on How to Grow Potatoes in a Bag.

As we have seen in other posts on the Agrohuerto blog, there are also other crops for which it is not necessary to use seeds because they can grow, such as garlic, onions, ginger, basil, lettuce…

How to regrow potatoes in 5 steps

1. Find the yolks. In each potato, there are usually several buds. They are also known as “eyebrows”, due to the similarity of their shape. They are elongated and darker colored slits, which have a small dot or protuberance below, the “eye” or “ojuelo”.

From there will come the shoots or «crickets», the beginning of the stems of the future potato plant, and the first thing we have to locate if we want to regrow potatoes.

2. Cut the potato several into pieces, leaving in each of the fractions a bud or shoot that we talked about in step 1. Thus, from each potato cut into pieces we can easily get three or four new plants.

3. Let the potato pieces dry. Especially if it has rained or they are wet for some other reason, you should wait a few minutes until they dry well before burying them to regrow potatoes. If they get into the ground wet they can spoil and the stem does not come out, become contaminated with fungi, etc.

4. At the top of the ridges, make holes in the ground and, at a depth of 5-8 cm, insert the potato pieces into each of them (with the eye facing up). Put them at a distance of 20 to 40 cm. Keep in mind that there should be enough room in the soil under each plant for new potatoes to form and grow (up to a dozen per plant), so the distance depends on the variety you want to re-grow potatoes from. If it is a larger potato variety you can leave about 40 cm between the holes. If the potatoes are small or it is a variety with little branches or smaller plants, a span of distance -about 20 cm- will be enough. If you are going to put several rows, leave 50-70 cm between rows.

5. Cover the potato pieces by pouring soil on top and pressing down a bit. Normally it is not necessary to do anything else (not even watering) until the plants have sprouted and the stems and leaves begin to come out of the ground.

Here I leave you a video where they perfectly explain the process to regrow potatoes:

Tips for Regrowing Potatoes

• It is best not to start regrowth potatoes until the frost season is over.
• The mulching or padding technique is highly recommended, especially when planting early when it is still winter.
• Two weeks before harvesting, cut the aerial part of the plants, leaving only the roots and buried potatoes that will be harvested shortly after.
• If you are going to grow potatoes in a pot or other container, the container must have a minimum depth of 50 cm.

I hope you found it useful. If you like it you can rate or subscribe to the news of Agrohuerto.com.

And if you have questions or experiences and advice on how to grow potatoes in the garden, in a bag, in a pot or in any other way, you can tell us in the comments. Cheers!