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Potatoes are one of the most versatile and popular vegetables grown today. Baked or steamed in their skins, potatoes are a great source of many beneficial vitamins and minerals, and contain insoluble as well as soluble fibre, helping to keep you regular and lower cholesterol. They are also very easy to grow and will store well under the right conditions, making them a must for any home vegetable gardener.

When choosing varieties for planting, it is always best to look for certified seed potatoes as they are guaranteed disease free. An amazing choice of heirloom seed varieties is available through mail order seed catalogues, all of which are well worth trying for taste, texture and versatility. Some potatoes purchased from the supermarket have been sprayed to prevent them from sprouting, but if you have potatoes that are starting to sprout in the pantry they will usually be fine to plant, and will grow to produce a reasonable harvest also.

Potatoes are a cool climate crop, preferring soil temperatures ranging from 10 to 25 degrees Celsius (50 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit). A few days either side of these temperatures during the growth season won't hurt, but frost will seriously retard or kill off leaf growth and too many very hot days will affect the tubers in the same way. The best time to plant your potatoes is approximately two weeks before the last spring frosts are due in your area. On average, potatoes are ready to harvest 90 to 120 days after planting.

Before planting your seed potatoes, place them in a warm light area for a week or so to start them sprouting. If you intend to cut them into pieces (be sure to have at least one eye on each piece), leave the pieces for another day or two to form a callous over the cut area. This will prevent them from rotting in the ground.

It is important to plant potatoes either in deep trenches or somewhere where soil can be mounded around the plants as they grow. Approximately 80 percent of a good potato crop grows above the original soil level, so the more soil you can mound up around the plants, the more potatoes you will grow. For this reason, many gardeners plant their potatoes in hessian sacks with the sides rolled right down to begin with, then gradually unroll the sack as more soil is added. (A word of warning, never use old tires to grow potatoes in this way. They leach toxic chemicals into the soil which will eventually make their way into your potatoes). Keep mounding so that about 10cm (4 inches) of stem

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