We are often asked about the best potatoes for beginners to grow. Growing your own vegetables is a wonderful hobby – the taste of freshly harvested potatoes and peas eaten an hour after harvest is just amazing. Potatoes are a relatively easy crop to grow, but like all things that grow they are susceptible to diseases and “eating things”. However, by choosing certain varieties, the beginner has more chance of success. We highly recommend “earlies” for beginners for two reasons – they are the quickest to mature and so enthusiasm will hopefully last and also they are likely to be harvested before blight sets it. Blight tends to occur later in the summer and can decimate a crop quite quickly and a beginner may not know what to look out for. The following list of best potatoes for beginners to grow is just some suggestions for you and not a definite list.
Chitting becomes less important the further on in the spring we are. With our fast delivery, you could be planting your potatoes within a week from order. Taking around 100 days for earlies just think of the lovely new potatoes. We have lots of advice and blogs for beginners – why not challenge a beginner friend to a potato Championchip for a bit of potato fun?
If you are growing for the first time we’d love to hear how you get on. Leave a comment here or on our Facebook page
The Best Potato For Beginners to Grow – Bambino
Bambino
Short oval tuber with white skin and cream flesh. Lovely salad potatoes with a smooth light waxy texture. Great organic variety due to high blight, scab and blackleg resistance.
A slightly unusual choice – Ambo
Ambo
The great thing about growing your own produce is that you can begin to experiment with colours, flavours and textures. It does not take long to find what grows well in your area and what you like.
Ambo is a very attractive early maturing versatile parti-coloured variety with good foliage and tuber late blight resistance. High yielding in a wide range of soil types and presents good drought resistance. Resistance to late blight on tubers. Popular with growers for its good blight and scab resistance the plant produces a high yield of floury potatoes which can be boiled or baked.
The Best Potato To Grow For Beginners – Casablanca
Casablanca
Chefs and cooks will love the versatility of the potato Casablanca. Good for all uses from boiling and chipping to mash and roasting.
This potato variety has been awarded the RHS Award of Garden Merit because it has proved to be reliable in appropriate conditions and a good performing plant. For more information on RHS Award of Garden Merit plants visit .rhs.org.uk/plants
Blight resistant – Sarpo Una
Sarpo Una
Multipurpose variety which can produce nice waxy salad potatoes if harvested early or can be left in ground for a heavy crop of baking potatoes. It has good resistance to late blight as well as a range of other diseases. This variety has a lovely pinkish skin.
The Best Potato For Beginners to Grow – Charlotte
Charlotte
Charlotte is best known for its culinary excellence, of course it is French. Best eaten fresh as a salad it can be stored up till Christmas. It is noted for good resistance against slugs and common scab leading to good appearance. Charlotte potatoes have a fresh flavour which tastes great either hot or cold. They are ideal boiled as part of a salad as they hold their shape well and can even be roasted whole.
This is another potato with an Awards of Garden Merit.
This list is just some suggestions for you. However, you can browse all the earlies and indeed our entire collection. We have lots of information to help you chose which potato to grow, as well as a great FAQ on how to grow potatoes. We are here to help at any time with your potato questions.
I want to grow potatoes in large tubs in my yard what are the best seed potatoes I can buy from you and recommendations for fertiliser
Hi Kevin
For fertiliser, we recommend a good garden compost or bone meal etc. Potatoes are a hungry crop!
Any early / 2nd early potatoes are good for tubs as they will not grow as large as main crop. Make sure there is drainage and they are watered well in dry periods – the pot will become drier than the surrounding ground due to evaporation. Also make sure that the pot is large enough – at least 50cm in height. Let us know how you get on – we’d love to see pics.
Hi, we have very clayish soil and are in High Peak , Derbyshire. Wondering which types would be best?
Hi Stella
As clay soil takes a while to warm up planting will be slightly later so I’d go for a slightly shorter season variety like Casablanca or Gatsby.
Hope this helps – let us know if go with these suggestions
Amy
I had clay soil dig in seaweed and in no time your soil will be black its cheap and free on the coast
My daughter gave me 3 of those green bags to grow early potatoes in,Iāve made up a mix of loamy soil ,a bag of mushroom compost and some putting compost ,sprinkling some potato fertiliser in as well, she had also given me a packet of rocket early potatoes, Iāve put 4 in each bag on a good layer of the mix, and then half filled the bags ,theyāre sitting in my polytunnel now ,she says when they grow you put more soil mix around them until itās to the top of the bag, will put outside when itās warmer.
We hope to stock the bags in the future and are actively looking for some. Your daughter is correct – keep mounding the potato up to encourage downward growth – the new tubers jostle for space and can get shunted to the surface. These ones are likely to go green. I hope you get a great potato patch.
Dear Potato House, My early and second early potatoes have got mixed up whilst I was storing them in an egg box. What should I do. Should I plan them all together?
Hi if you could send a pic to amy@potatohouse.co.uk we can help identify them.
I have been given a black canvas potato growing bag. It is currently empty. Please would you advise the sort of compost I should use, and which potato variety I should choose. I have never grown potatoes before. I live in a flat and will be growing them on my south facing patio. Thank you.
Hi Annie
Make sure that the bag has drainage holes! This is much easier when the bag is empty Potatoes like to be watered but not waterlogged. It also needs to be big enough – probably around 30 cma deep. A good multi purpose compost is fine. Most bags will take around 3 tubers and I’d recommend an Early like Colleen which will give a lovely salad potato.
Hello,
I would like to plant potatoes in May, I have built a raised bed 1.5m x 1.5m and a height of 1.3m, what is the best variety to plant? I was thinking of Sarpo Una or Casablanca as we prepare a lot of salad or oven potatoes.
Hi Daniel,
Well done for building your own raised bed! The best variety question is the million dollar question! Both ones that you have picked are great – They are both great all rounders and would do equally well boiled/salad and in the oven. I think you may need another raised bed so you can have both.
Hi, I have never grown potatoes before but am I too late to plant some in bags this late? I would like to give it a go on an easy to grow all rounder if possible? I have seen some 8L potato grow bags, how many seeds would I plant in each bag? Please can you advise. Thanks for your help!
hi sorry about the delay in responding – we have been on holiday. We have some late season potatoes for sale, and Ambo would be a great all-rounder
I would say 3 to each tub. Let us know how you get on!