Do Potatoes Come Back Every Year?

November 18, 2024 by Robby

As a gardener, you may have noticed potato plants emerging in your garden bed year after year This leads to the question – do potatoes regrow annually on their own? Let’s take a closer look at the life cycle and growing habits of potatoes to understand if and when they may return each year

The Perennial Nature of Potatoes

Potatoes are technically classified as a perennial plant. This means the plant can live for multiple years as opposed to annuals that complete their lifecycle in one season.

However, most gardeners grow potatoes as an annual crop. This allows for ideal harvests year after year, rather than diminishing returns from overwintered plants.

In permaculture gardens or very mild climates, potatoes may be left in the ground to overwinter. The tubers go dormant through the cold months to resprout when conditions are favorable again.

But for most home gardeners, actively replanting potatoes annually is recommended. This provides tubers enough space and nutrients to reach maximum productivity.

Why Potatoes Are Grown as Annuals

There are a few key reasons why growing potatoes as annuals is preferred over relying on them to return each year:

Better yields – With new seed tubers each season, plants aren’t overcrowded or competing for resources. More energy goes towards new potato growth.
Ideal harvest timing – Annual planting lets you determine the exact maturity and harvest date based on the variety. Volunteer potatoes emerge sporadically.
Disease/pest prevention – Rotating annual crops helps break disease cycles. Potatoes left in the ground are more prone to viruses, fungi, and pests.

Winter survival issues – In colder climates, tubers left in the ground often rot over winter. Frozen soil also makes them inaccessible come spring.
Space optimization – Annual planting allows for crop rotation to nourish the soil. Leaving potatoes in a permanent spot can deplete nutrients.

For reliable, bountiful harvests, replanting seed potatoes each year is best practice for most gardeners.

Can Potatoes Reemerge on Their Own?

Potatoes you miss during fall harvest may sprout again in spring under the right conditions. However, this volunteer growth is unreliable for a few reasons:

Fewer tubers – Only the potatoes left behind will generate plants, versus an entire intentionally planted crop.
Delayed emergence – Volunteer potatoes sprout later than those intentionally planted at the optimal early spring time.
Poor nutrient access – Potatoes spread haphazardly from last year’s crop may not be able to access enough nutrients to form large tubers.

Increased disease susceptibility – Leftover potatoes are more vulnerable to fungal and bacterial diseases like blight.

So while volunteer potatoes may emerge, they likely won’t produce the quantity or quality you expect without yearly planting.

Best Practices for Planting Annual Potato Crops

To grow prolific potato crops each year, follow these tips:

Select disease-free seed potatoes from reputable sources, certified organic if possible. Avoid using potatoes from the grocery store.

Plant potatoes in early spring as soon as the soil can be worked. This gives tubers the longest time to grow.
Allow proper spacing, at least 12 inches apart. Crowding causes small, malformed tubers.
Hill soil over plants as they grow to prevent tubers from greening above ground.

Rotate crop placement in the garden to prevent disease buildup.
Harvest potatoes promptly once plants start dying back to avoid rotting tubers.

With this annual regimen, you can enjoy an optimal potato harvest season after season.

The Takeaway

Can potatoes regrow on their own year after year? While their perennial nature allows for volunteer sprouts from leftover tubers, actively replanting annually yields far better results for most home gardeners. This gives each crop the space, nutrients, and planting time needed for large, healthy yields. With the right practices, you can reliably grow prolific potatoes crops every year.

Information I’ve Been Missing

What is the relationship between days to maturity and storage length. Should I just stay away from potatoes that are early (70–90 days) or mid-season (90–110 days) if I want to store them until early spring?

Yes, the varieties that mature later tend to stay dormant longer than the varieties that mature earlier. However, dormancy is controlled by many things, many of which are weather-related and out of the grower’s control. So plant early and mid-season potatoes to eat right away, and late-season potatoes to store for longer.

What really is the optimum planting depth and spacing of my potatoes?

One to four inches deep is best for planting (less deep in colder areas and more deep in the south). I’ve been planting my potatoes WAY too deep.
Plants should be 10 to 12 inches apart, except for fingerlings, which should be 14 to 18 inches apart. I’ve been planting my potatoes too far apart.

What is the optimum planting time for potatoes in my area?

When the ground is 50 degrees four inches deep in the morning, before the sun heats it up, you can plant. If you don’t have a thermometer, this soil temperature map for your zip code is the best way to guess what the temperature of the ground is likely to be. In our area, the ground gets warm enough to walk on in early to mid-April. After the first of the month, I like to plant because there is less chance that a hard frost will kill the new stems.

Does it really matter if the potatoes are determinate or indeterminate? I only learned about the difference between the two a few years ago, and it’s hard to find a list that says for sure which ones are which.

In short, no. Most commercial varieties are determinate, which means they grow all at once and then die back. They don’t keep putting on potatoes all season. Another important thing to remember is that potatoes are a cool-season crop. If it’s over 90 degrees during the day, the plants will likely die, whether they are determinate or indeterminate. Since summers are getting hotter and longer here, there’s no point in looking for indeterminate types. As the weather gets warmer, I’m also thinking about putting a shade cloth over the row.

What’s with disease issues? Does it really matter if I don’t buy certified seed potatoes every year?

Viruses can easily infect potatoes. They are spread from plant to plant by insects with sharp, sucking mouths, most often by aphids. As these viruses spread through the potato plant, they slowly lower the yield of the potatoes themselves. Because these viruses build up in the potato tuber, which is a copy of its parent plant, planting potatoes from the previous year means that you are slowly adding more and more viruses. There’s a chance that you’ll never actually SEE that your potatoes have viruses. Over the years, the potatoes will just get smaller and smaller. These viruses are harmless to humans.
It seems that before tissue culture of seed potatoes became common, some varieties had problems with “running out,” which meant that they couldn’t produce healthy potatoes when they were grown from seeds.
Here’s a look at how commercial seed potatoes are grown from the outside. Seed potatoes are grown from cuttings instead of real seeds (you can grow potatoes from real seeds, but that’s a different blog post). Instead of coming from the roots, the tubers we harvest come from the plant’s stem. Along the stem there are lateral growth points, or buds. Each of these buds has a meristem, which is a small group of cells that divide quickly and can make all of a flowering plant’s adult parts. Meristems don’t have blood vessels, so they are less likely to get bacterial, fungal, or viral infections. It is possible to grow these meristems in a lab until they turn into small plants. This tissue is tested over and over for disease to make sure it is free of it. They are sometimes called pre-nuclear.

Then, these plantlets—about the size of an alfalfa sprout—are grown in a greenhouse, away from insects that spread disease, to make “mini” tubers. These plants are the most disease-free seed tubers you can buy. They are sometimes called “nuclear.” Then, these little tubers are grown out in the open field to make the first crop of “seed” potatoes. It is illegal in most states to grow and sell these potatoes for more than one generation at a time, since each generation brings more viruses. Sites that are higher up and have colder climates have fewer insects, so diseases tend to spread more slowly there.
Most of the time, when you buy seed potatoes, they are “certified.” Different states have different requirements for this certification, but it does make sure that the potatoes you buy are of a certain variety and size, are free of different diseases and mechanical damage (but not always viral diseases), and that the information on the box tells you what generation of grow out the potatoes are. See HERE for USDA details. Washington Dept. of Ag Certification Program HERE.

Wouldn’t it make sense that the larger the starting tuber, the more potatoes you’d get?

It’s true that bigger potatoes give you more food, but you need to buy more seed potatoes to plant the same area, so it’s a trade-off.

Do I really need to cut up my seeds into individual “eyes”?

Every potato “eye” grows a stem, and that stem makes a new plant. The best “seed” potato size, according to studies, is between 1 1/2 and 2 3/4 oz. (About the size of a large chicken egg). Because of this, cutting your bigger tubers into 1 1/2 to 2 oz square pieces, each with at least one eye, and spreading them out when you plant will give you the most potatoes for the least amount of work. 1 lb of potatoes should plant 8-10 feet.

What is Chitting or Greensprouting and should I do it?

To wake a potato up from its sleep, greensprouting is done. To make a potato sprout, bring the seed potatoes to room temperature and keep the plant in the dark for 7–10 days. As soon as sprouts appear from the eye, put the tubers in light and cool them down to 50–55 degrees to stop growth. When you plant seeds, this method cuts the time it takes for the stems to come up by 10 to 14 days. The plant is very good at fighting off rot once the stem has come out. So green sprouting is a great way to protect against disease and save time when it’s time to harvest.

When is the optimum time to harvest my potatoes?

You may have heard that your plants are making potatoes if they have blooms. Now is very important for your potatoes to grow, and it’s even more important that they have enough water! You can pick a few ping-pong-sized potatoes here and there once you see the plants blooming, but they won’t be at their best size until the plants have died back on their own. This can be anywhere from 70 to 130 days, depending on the type. For me, if I plant on April 15, I could harvest anywhere from late June to late August. Pay attention to those maturity estimates! .

It’s possible for tubers to get bigger in the last week or two before they die completely. This is because the tuber pulls energy from the plant and stores it in itself. The potatoes will last longer in storage if you harvest them when they are fully grown. Don’t feel like a bad gardener if you don’t dig your potatoes right away (as long as you can keep gophers from eating them all before you do!)
There are many genetic and environmental factors that make some types of plants stay dormant longer than others. All Blue, Burbank, Butterball, Katahdin, Kennebec, Prairie Blush, Red Chieftain, Red Cloud, Red Pontiac Rose, Finn, Apple, Russian Banana, Fingerling, Sapro, Mira, Yukon Gem, and Yukon Gold are some varieties that are said to store well for a long time.
Your mileage may vary. The All Blue, Red Chieftain, and Red Pontiac have not done very well in my storage conditions.

What IS the ideal way to store potatoes for home use to keep them from sprouting?

You’ve probably anways heard to NOT refrigerate your potatoes. This is because some of the starches can turn into sugars when the potato is stored in the fridge. When the potato is deep-fried, the extra sugar can turn it an unattractive shade of brown. I wouldn’t mind if the color changed, and I don’t deep fry potatoes very often anyway. When potatoes are boiled or roasted, this extra sugar doesn’t change the color.
The University of California Davis says that the best way to store fresh food is at 40 degrees F with high humidity and good airflow. Conditions that don’t generally exist on the homestead. It seems like the best solution would be to keep potatoes in an extra fridge in my garage.

My problem is that I can’t get cheap, large amounts of straw or mulch. I plant up to a 100-foot row of potatoes, so I’d need a LOT of mulch, and I’d have to reapply it several times during the growing season to keep the potatoes from turning green. I used straw as mulch once, and it sprouted a million weed and grass seeds that were impossible to get rid of. What a great idea! If I had a big pile of mulch to use, I would definitely give this more of a try. But it does require deep soil fertility to be successful. Potatoes have surprisingly deep roots and are heavy feeders. If the mulch you plant in hasn’t been composted well before, your potatoes will be hungry and your crop will be small.

So there you have it. A much deeper dive into the ins and outs of growing potatoes for long term homestead use. This year I’ll be better about choosing my potatoes so that they harvest early and then late. I’ll also suck it up and order seed potatoes through the mail. I’ll likely order from Fedco (they carry close to 50 varieties). For early varieties, I’m thinking about Yukon Gem or Caribe. For late varieties, I might choose Kauka Gold, Elba, or Katahdin. I also like Pinto as a fingerling.

© Miles Away Farm 2023, where we’re Miles Away from perfecting our potato growing techniques, but are willing to keep experimenting. Want more content? Sign up for a monthly newsletter to your email inbox HERE

WHY Are You Growing Potatoes As Annuals? 4 Tips To Grow Perennial Potatoes For Massive Harvests

FAQ

Can I leave potatoes in the ground over winter?

Potatoes As the colder temperatures hit your area, your potato plants will die back. But underneath the soil, your potatoes can keep for many months, even through to next spring, if they’re deep enough under a layer of well-draining soil and mulch.

What happens if I don’t harvest my potatoes?

Wait too long, and your potatoes may get damaged by frost, or begin to sprout, crack or rot underground.

Do potatoes come back year after year?

I had potatoes growing on the edge of a compost pile for several years. Every spring, the ones that were missed at harvest time, became next year’s seed. In the wild, plants often occupy the same spot for a long time. They rot down in that spot and nutrients are cycled.

Is potato annual or perennial?

Potatoes are herbaceous perennials in the nightshade family (Solanaceae), but they are grown as annual crops. Potatoes are native to South America in parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. They are now widely cultivated and major producers include China, Germany, India, Russia and the United States.

Will forgotten potatoes grow back next year?

If you live in a climate where the soil freezes deeply, these forgotten potatoes will freeze and turn to mush. They will not grow back next year. If you live in a climate where the soil does not freeze, or does not freeze down as deep as the potato tubers are, the forgotten potatoes will most likely grow back the following year.

What happens if a potato plant dies back?

If, however, your plant died back normally, which means the potatoes are ready to harvest, you may have potatoes left in the ground from last year – like Easter eggs hidden in the yard, found months later. Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) thrive in USDA hardiness zones 2 to 11, reports Missouri Botanical Garden.

Can potatoes survive for years?

Potatoes are perennial, so in theory the plants can survive for years on end. However, this assumes the proper climate. Potato plants are perennial and can survive for years under the proper conditions. Although potatoes are a cool weather crop, a hard frost or freeze can kill the plant’s growth above ground.

Do potatoes die off in a single season?

The entire growth cycle happens in a single season. Potato plants are sensitive to frost, but even in hotter climates, these plants die off in a single year and have to be replanted the following spring from seed potatoes, which are potato tubers that have been preserved and chitted, ready for planting.

Should you replant potatoes every year?

It’s best to replant your garden with new seed potatoes every spring. I’ll share more info on why it’s best to plant a fresh potato crop every year and what may happen if you choose to leave your tubers in the ground over winter. Are potatoes perennial plants? Contrary to popular belief, potatoes are perennial.

Do potatoes grow after the plant dies?

Potatoes do not grow after the plant dies. The green shoots (the part of the plant above ground) produces energy by photosynthesis and stores starches in the tuber. When potato plant vines start to turn yellow and fall over, the tubers are just about done growing.

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