PlantSowGrowHow to grow Potato (Rocket)
Solanum tuberosum
🥕 Vegetable
🌱 Grown each year
One of the fastest first-early potatoes: small, smooth new potatoes in about ten weeks. Ideal for bags and containers.
At a glance: Sow early March to early April, harvest from mid May.
When to sow, plant and harvest
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Sow outdoors
Harvest
Timed for a typical UK garden (last frost mid-April). The app uses your own town's frost dates.
Growing Potato (Rocket): what it needs
- Light
- Full sun · 6+ hours a day
- Watering
- Water in dry spells, especially as crops swell
- Soil
- Firm, well-drained soil
- Spacing
- 30 cm, rows 60 cm apart
- In pots
- Only in large containers
- Feeding
- A general fertiliser before planting
- Harvest
- About 70 days from sowing
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 3–9
Step by step
- Early February – late March · 10 weeks before the last spring frost
Chit Seed Potatoes (optional)
Stand seed potatoes eye-end up in egg boxes somewhere light and cool so they grow short, sturdy shoots.
- Early March – early April · 6 weeks before the last spring frost
Plant Seed potatoes
Plant seed potatoes 30 cm, rows 60 cm apart apart in rows.
- 14–28 days after “Plant Seed potatoes” · Mid March – early April
Look for Shoots
Green shoots should be showing. Keep weeds down — these crops hate competition.
- 14–21 days after “Look for Shoots” · Early April
Earth Up
Draw soil up around the shoots when 20 cm tall. Cover with fleece if frost is forecast.
- 70–90 days after “Plant Seed potatoes” · Mid May – early June
Harvest
Lift when the plants flower — scrape away a little soil first to check the size.
- 7–21 days after “Harvest” · Mid May – early June
Dry and Store
Eat fresh; new potatoes do not store long.
