# Potato Growth: Seed to Harvest How one seed potato sprouts, roots, grows leaves and stolons, and becomes a whole crop of new tubers underground\. By quiet\-moon\-c68d68bb Topic: Nature & Biology [Open the interactive Jig](https://ask.jig.com/j/RVrZAvEqlkGs) ## Transcript ### 1. A potato that wants to grow This is a seed potato: an ordinary potato saved for planting\. Kept somewhere cool and bright, its eyes wake up and push out short, sturdy sprouts\. Every new plant in this story starts from those eyes\. Drag the scene to look around\. Each eye is a bud\. A seed piece needs only one to three of them\. ### 2. Into the soil In spring, when the soil has warmed to about 8 °C, the seed potato is planted with its sprouts pointing up\. It goes 5 to 15 centimetres deep, depending on the gardener\. The front of this bed is cut away so you can watch what happens underground\. Plants are usually set 20 to 30 centimetres apart\. ### 3. Sprouts and roots The sprouts grow up towards the light and roots spread out to drink water\. For now the plant has no leaves to make food, so it lives on the starch stored in the seed potato\. After two to four weeks, the first shoots break through the surface\. The seed potato is the plant's packed lunch until its leaves take over\. ### 4. Leaves and stolons Above ground, leaves catch sunlight and turn it into sugar\. This is photosynthesis\. Underground, the stems send out stolons: thin, pale side shoots that creep sideways through the soil\. Gardeners now pile soil up around the stems, which is called hilling\. Hilling keeps the future potatoes deep in the dark\. ### 5. Potatoes begin About three to four weeks after the shoots appear, the tip of each stolon starts to swell\. These tiny swellings are new potatoes, called tubers\. Cool soil helps: above about 24 °C, tubers struggle to form\. A potato is a swollen stem, not a root\. Its eyes are buds, just like the buds on a branch\. ### 6. Flowers and berries Around two months after planting, many potato plants bloom with star\-shaped white, pink or purple flowers\. Some flowers turn into small green berries full of tiny seeds\. Flowers do not mean the potatoes are ready\. The green berries look like little tomatoes but are poisonous\. Never eat them\. ### 7. Filling up with starch Now the leaves work hard, and the sugar they make travels down the stems to the tubers, where it is stored as starch\. The new potatoes swell for 30 to 60 days\. The old seed potato has given everything and shrivels away\. Steady watering at this stage gives bigger, smoother potatoes\. ### 8. Dying back Late in summer the leaves turn yellow, then brown, and the stems flop over\. This is normal: the plant has finished its work\. While the vines die back, the skins of the potatoes underground grow thicker and tougher\. Firm skins that do not rub off with a thumb are ready for storing\. ### 9. Harvest About 70 to 120 days after planting, depending on the variety, it is time to dig\. One seed potato has become a whole family of new potatoes\. Dig gently, let them dry for a week or two somewhere cool and dark, and save a few to plant next year\. Store potatoes in the dark\. Light turns their skin green and bitter\.