You can grow potatoes in a small space

• Potatoes should be planted in sunny sites in fertile, slightly acidic soil. Loosen the soil with a fork and remove any weeds or stones.

• Cut apart larger seed potatoes, making sure there are at least two eyes in each piece you plant.

• Dust the cut pieces, which seals the open ends from bacteria.

• Fertilize with 8-20-20 fertilizer at planting and a couple of times during the season.

• Water so that the plants are kept at an even level of moisture.

• Don’t plant in the same area in consecutive years or use the same soil to fill your potato box, as potatoes can attract various diseases.

• Recommended potato varieties for the lower mainland include:  Yukon Gold, Caribe, Red Pontiac, Desiree, Norland, Sangre, Pacific Russet, Russet Burbank, Kennebec, Warba, Bintje, Dakotah Pearl, and Satina. We carry several varieties of “gourmet” potatoes that also do well in our climate.

To save space, I recommend building a box and planting inside it, adding sides to the box as the plant grows and filling the new space with mulch or soil.

When the plant blossoms, it starts setting potatoes in this added soil. Soon after that, you can start removing the bottom boards from your box and “robbing” the plant, reaching in carefully and pulling out new potatoes.

Unless you steal all of them during the growing season, in the fall you should end up with a box of spuds — as much as 100 pounds.

Watering at an even rate is especially important when growing potatoes in a box since they will dry out faster in the container than in the ground.

Don’t drown and then let the potatoes dry out. Repeating that cycle throughout the year is a guarantee that you’ll grow knobby, scabby potatoes.

Your full potato crop is ready to be harvested when frost kills the tops. Or, in the absence of frost, you can cut off the tops yourself, wait 10 days to two weeks for the skins to firm up and then take your box apart completely, sorting the potatoes from the soil.

Fall and winter temperatures and humidity in the lower mainland are ideal for storing potatoes, and you can keep potatoes in a paper sack or basket in a garage.