Togher N.S.

International Year of the Potato

5th & 6th Class Pupils

A Diary of The Cute Colleen

We took part of the Department of Agriculture’s celebration of the International Year of the Potato. They sent every school two seed potatoes. They were the Colleen variety. We planted out potato in the growing bag provided, then placed this bag inside a large pot, for stability.

We placed the potato plant directly in front of a window, as we know light is very important for good photosynthesis to take place. We turned the plant around regularly to ensure all parts of it are exposed to the light.

We know that heat encourages plants to grow. We put our plant in front of a window, near a radiator. However, we turned off the radiator, as we feared the potato plant would be too hot during the day, and that the soil would dry out too quickly.

We are also worried that the temperature at night may be too low, although we know there is no danger of it reaching below freezing point, as we have a temperature gauge in the school which never allows the temperature to go below 5° C.
Our room never gets too warm, as it is north facing. We kept the plant indoors as the stalk got so big, and we were afraid the wind would topple it over.


We watered our potato 2—3 times a week. It only requires small amounts at the moment, to keep the soil moist. As it grew, the potato needed a lot of water, and we began to water it every day.

In April, we put in more compost around our potato. This was to give added nutrients and to support the stalk.