Vegetable · Solanaceae
When to plant potatoes
The tuber is safe underground; the foliage is not. Plant early and be ready to cover.
Sow direct
2 weeks before
Counted from your last spring frost.
Days to maturity
70-120
From sowing to a first picking.
Frost tolerance
Half hardy
How much cold the plant itself will take.
Those weeks become real dates once you name a place.
Timing, in frost-relative terms
Seed packets rarely give calendar dates, because a date that suits one latitude is wrong at another. They give offsets from the last spring frost instead, and those offsets are what make potatoes plantable anywhere.
- Sow direct 2 weeks before the last frost.
- Expect 70–120 days to maturity, counted from sowing.
Getting the timing right
Plant two weeks before last frost so shoots emerge around the frost date. Earthing up buries vulnerable shoots and buys you a week of frost protection at a time.
Frost tolerance
Emerged foliage is blackened at -2C, though the plant usually regrows from the tuber with a yield penalty. Frost after emergence is the classic potato setback.
Classified as half-hardy, with damage expected below -2°C (28.4°F)28.4°F (-2°C).