Lancaster’s ‘Potato Day’ falls on January 31 2026 at the Friends Meeting House – the building next to the train station.
From 10am to 3pm Potato Day’s doors will be open to all, with free entry and a range of activities to entice you to stay, including a potato-themed Cafe, a seed swap, a range of community food stalls, a scavenger hunt for children and drop in governance advice sessions with Mark Thomas from Co-op Culture for allotment committees.
The day runs every year on a ‘not-for-profit’ basis and is currently coordinated by the Claver Hill community food project with support from North Lancashire’s FoodFutures partnership.
The aim of the event is simple: to bring people together and get more food grown and shared locally.
This year there will be over 25 different varieties of organic seed potatoes for sale and, for the first time, five organic onion set varieties for sale.
They will all be sold loose so you could buy just a couple to plant in a bucket in your backyard, or else buy enough to grow an allotment full of potatoes or onions.
Once bought, the seed potatoes are usually taken home and laid out to ‘chit’ – they start to grow small shoots.
They are ready to plant in the ground once the frosts are over.
Potatoes more or less grow themselves and digging them up is a joy in itself – smelling all earthy – and that’s before you even start to cook them.
Spuds are also a great way to get kids into food growing – you can almost watch them as they grow.
There will also be a range of stalls focused on local food, growing and environmental campaigns, including heritage fruit trees, jams and preserves, a composting stall and Rewilding Roots sharing information about their work with schools.
You don’t even need a garden to grow as there are community food growing projects such as Claver Hill where you can join with others and make new friends while growing great fresh veggies.
So come along and find out more.
Lancaster Seed Library will be bringing a range of seeds to share and swap whilst also answering your seed-saving questions.
So bring along questions, seeds you have saved or perhaps excess that you have bought, to donate and exchange.
Potato Day has become a Lancaster tradition that always attracts a great collection of people.
Everyone is welcome, even those who don’t like potatoes!
