Growing Potatoes: Hilling, Blight & Variety Guide

title: "Growing Potatoes: Complete Garden Guide"

I don't grow potatoes at my Long Island plot — the space requirement and the management of late blight in the humid Northeast makes them a lower priority than the tomatoes and peppers I do grow. This guide is sourced from Cornell Cooperative Extension, Penn State Extension, and the USDA, which publish the most thorough guidance on home potato production for the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

Potato growing is straightforward in concept: plant a piece of potato, hill soil around the emerging plants repeatedly, harvest in summer or fall. The complications arise from disease — specifically late blight (Phytophthora infestans), the same pathogen that affects tomatoes — and from understanding how tuber formation works well enough to support it through hilling and irrigation.

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Variety selection

Solanum tuberosum cultivars are classified by skin color, flesh color, and maturity:

Early season (55—70 days from planting): 'Yukon Gold' (yellow flesh, excellent flavor), 'Red Norland' (red skin, white flesh, good boiled). Per Cornell Cooperative Extension, early varieties are ready before the peak late blight season in the Northeast and are useful for areas with high disease pressure.

Midseason (70—90 days): 'Kennebec' (white, disease-tolerant, widely grown), 'Red Pontiac' (red skin, good yield), 'Adirondack Blue' (purple skin and flesh). 'Kennebec' has \"good tolerance to late blight\" per Penn State Extension and is the recommended all-purpose variety for the Northeast.

Late season (90—120 days): 'Russet Burbank' (the classic baked potato), 'Katahdin' (white, good disease resistance), 'Elba' (excellent late blight tolerance per Cornell). Late varieties produce the largest yields but require a longer growing season and greater disease management.

Per Johnny's Selected Seeds, days-to-maturity figures for potatoes are highly variable and depend on soil temperature, growing conditions, and whether early tubers or full storage-size tubers are the goal.