Potatoes, one of the most used vegetables and a large part of people’s staple diet. It is also one of the most versatile vegetables in how it can be cooked and what it can be used in. Growing potatoes can be a very rewarding, but it can be challenging to get great yield. A common guide is 1kg of seed potato will generally yield 10kg of Potatoes.
Potatoes are a long term crop and can take 3 months or longer before you can harvest them. This year I have decided to grow Norland and Royal Blue varieties. The Norland Potato is red skin white flesh potato that can cope with long cold winters and has a good disease resistance. The Royal Blue potato is purple skinned, yellowed flesh potato that is a great potato to grow for beginners as they grow in a variety of condition and have a high pest resistance.
Growing potatoes in a garden bed:
- Dig trenches 15-20cm deep approximately 30cm apart.
- Sprinkle the soil with blood and bone meal, chicken manure pellets and potassium
- Plant your potatoes out between 20-30cm and then water
- Cover with approximately 10cm of compost. I used homemade compost which contains sheep manure, grass clippings, cardboard, rabbit manure, kitchen and garden scraps, and then water again
- Sprinkle some more chicken manure pellets on
- Cover with a mulch. I used barley hay
- Once potatoes have sprouted out of the ground, liquid feed once a week
Blood and Bone meal and Chicken Manure Pellets ready to add to the soil 
The rows of potatoes covered with compost
Keep the soil you have dug out, leave it to the side of the bed or bag it up and store, as this will be used to hill up the potatoes which is will I will write about in the near future.
Growing potatoes in pots and bags:
- Cover the base with mulch till about 5cm high. I have used hay as mulch
- Place Potatoes on mulch
- Cover with compost till the potatoes are still just covered. Water and cover potatoes
- Sprinkle with blood and bone meal, chicken manure pellets and potassium
- Add another 5cm of compost
- Cover with mulch.
- Once potatoes have sprouted out of the ground liquid feed once a week
Growing Potatoes in a Pot 
Growing Potatoes in a Bag
You will need extra soil or mulch to cover the potatoes up with once the sprout out of the ground. Remember to keep you soil where you potatoes are growing moist as letting it dry out will affect your yield.