Key Dates for Grow Your Own Potatoes Project 🥔 ign up NOW

Key Dates - Register by 26th January 2024

Registrations are now OPEN for GYOP 2024.

Please note:
If you would like to receive more than one FREE growing kit for your school in 2024 (up to a maximum of 4 per school) you will need to register separately for each kit. You will also need to use a different email address for each registration.

Please be aware that ONLY Primary schools in England, Scotland and Wales (5 to 11 year old) are eligible to take part in the GYOP project and will be allocated kits in 2024.

We have replica kits if you are not eligible or require more. We also have grow bags for sale.

Key Dates | Chit Potatoes Grow Your Own Potatoes | Potato House Grow Your Own Potatoes Potato House

Key Dates - Chitting

Your kits will arrive around 20th February and you will need to chit them before you plant them.

Start chitting your seed potatoes when you get them in February. This will take about 2 weeks.

Chitting will speed up the growing process of your potatoes, by exposing them to light and more importantly, a bit of warmth. This will cause the eyes of the seed potato to start sprouting and should result in a better crop.

Key Dates - Planting

Planting Day Nation wide is Tuesday 5th March

By now you should have chitted your potatoes, but don't worry if not, you can still plant them. Just be extra careful not to over water them before they have had a chance to get established.

Don't forget to label your grow-bags to help identify the variety growing.

If your school schedule conflicts with this date, or if the weather is too cold to go outside don't worry! Any time in the next week will give a good harvest by the summer holidays. Many gardeners will plant in April and even into May. However their harvest will be much later. A March planting day gives 12-14 weeks of growing before the summer holidays.

Key Dates - Growing

5th March - 11th June

14 weeks from planting to harvesting.

To grow a successful crop your potatoes will need light, water, food, space and air.

Make sure you find the perfect spot to stand your bag, keep soil moist, but not wet and don't forget to top up your soil as the plant grows to give the potatoes plenty of room.

Watch out for late frosts. Potatoes hate frosts and if possible you should bring your bags inside overnight if frost is forecast.

Key Dates - Harvest

Tuesday 11th June

Now is the exciting time when you find out if all of your hard work has paid off, just 14 weeks since planting.

If you remove the green tops from your plants, it makes them easy to pull out of the bag without damaging them, this means you can re-use the bags to grow something else.

Once out of the bags, the fun begins; roll up those sleeves and rummage through the soil to find your potatoes, just watch out for the mother tuber!!

Have fun measuring and weighing the potatoes. Have you grown one that looks like a pop star or your head teacher? What was the smallest potato? And the largest? Can you tell the differenes between the varieties?

Cooking your potatoes

As soon after harvest as possible

This will be the best bit for some pupils - the reward after the hard work. The potatoes will last for a week or so after harvest, but are best eaten as soon as possible. The official term for them is "new potatoes" and means the first of the new season.

At this stage you should have enough potatoes to cook for your class. Some schools have facilities for this and we have stories of the dinner staff getting involved to cook the potatoes. However, if your school does not have this, we hope that a teacher can take the potatoes home to cook and then bring them back the following day.

Perhaps the children can make a potato salad? We have lots of quick and easy recipes to tempt you.

Please share some pictures of the children enjoying their hard work. Tag us on any social media.

Register for GYOP | Grow Your Own Potatoes | Potato House

Enter our fun free Competition

As soon after harvest as possible

When you are harvesting your potatoes take some measurements and pictures and then enter our competition.

Prizes will be confirmed later in the year.

Do you have any questions?

If you are worried about being able to deliver this project for your pupils, please be assured that we are here at all stages to help you Grow Your Own Potatoes for your class.

Please let us know if you you have any concerns.