“Why would you grow potatoes?” you might ask. “Why bother? They are cheap! You can get a sack of them for a few bucks! Why not grow something expensive, like fresh basil!”

For the answer, keep reading!

Why You Should Be Growing Potatoes

There are multiple reasons to grow your own potatoes. Sure, they are cheap. Right now! We don’t know if potatoes will always be cheap, or even available in the store. How much do you trust the shipping lines that reach all the way from Idaho to your local grocery?

And you don’t need any expensive or special seed potatoes to grow your own. You can buy a bag of typical white potatoes from your local shopping center, bring them home, and cut them up, making sure that on each slice you have a sprout (or an eye) on it. Yes, I know they say you can’t grow grocery store potatoes, but you can!

Then stick each slice into preferably soft soil about an inch deep and cover it over. Plant in the cool season, a few weeks before your last frost date.

In no time at all the’ll be popping up out of the soil, and a few months later you’ll have amazingly tasty, home grown–and cheap–potatoes.

Here is a video on how to grow potatoes the way we do – it’s simple!

Three Good Reasons to Grow Potatoes

Besides the potential supply line issues, here are three more good reasons to grow potatoes.

First of all, the taste. All you have to do is boil them down for a while, mash them, put butter and salt in them, and from my own experiences I can tell that they are the best potatoes you will ever try, period. You cannot buy potatoes that taste as good as homegrown potatoes.

Second of all, potatoes are an ideal survival crop. With a bed of potatoes, you’ll have a good chance of survival if the world collapses. They are not a very big root, but it only takes a few of them to fill you up. Potatoes are high in calories, so when you are filled up they will keep you running for a fairly long time.

Thirdly, potatoes are easy to store. You can chop them up and can them, you can freeze them. Heck, you could even dry them, turn them into a powder, and there you have your instant mashed potatoes! You can put them in a root cellar, you can keep them in a dark pantry, or you can turn them into vodka.

And here’s another thing, potatoes are high in vitamin C, as well as various other nutrients.

The Downside of Potatoes

But, sadly, alongside all of the good things about potatoes is one very bad thing, solanine, which most everybody is slightly allergic to while others are highly allergic to it, including myself. For even the son of the best known gardener still living has to be allergic to something, and so I was unfortunately chosen by the good God to be allergic to this creamy white, nutty, and savory root. Solanine is the plant toxin that makes green potatoes poisonous, and even lily-white potatoes still contain some. If you have problems with arthritis or join pain, potatoes should be eliminated from your diet if possible in case they are part of the problem.

Potatoes are also bad for low carb diets, since they rank high on the glycemic index, but, I mean, nothing was made perfect, now was it?

Just Grow Potatoes!

Potatoes are one of the best-tasting roots of all time, they are a very easy plant to grow, they are high in calories and they can keep people alive for a long time, unless British soldiers are stealing your fair share of them.

Next time you go to a store I challenge you to buy a bag full of potatoes, cut em up, stick them in the ground, and bang, you will be growing some amazing potatoes!

-Post by Ezekiel Good