I'm such a greedy so-and-so. I thought..."I'll just leave those spuds in the ground a little longer and after the rains, I'll get bigger and more potatos". Mistake. I had already seen the signs on the bushes where the flowers had turned to small tomato-like fruits. That should have brought me to my senses...but no, the man wanted more and bigger. Well, there has been lots of rain forecast for the coming days, so I broke down and listened to reason and dug them up. It was in fact just too late for some and here you can see what I'm talking about: The little fruits telling me that the cycle was finished and that it was time to lift: --Greening places on potatos can be very poisonous. Had I persisted, I could have lost quite a bit of the harvest. Here you can see greening places on the spuds. These greening bits with chitting leaf buds were NOT above the soil, they were deep underground. . The moral here is not to be too greedy. When it's time to lift the spuds...lift 'em. Period. Here you have a couple of harvest fotos: That large trug full of potatos was barely liftable--it was from four(4) plants only. Once home I could look-over the harvest properly. What you can't see is a couple of kilos of runner beans under the courgettes.
Thanks for the potato harvesting lesson. I never knew that their flowers would produce a fruit. Is that edible? I thought I had heard years ago that the spuds were ready when the above ground plant died but yours don't look anywhere near that stage. Everything else looks really good. I am really looking forward to fresh vegie suppers next year.
On our potatoe plants when we notice the stem turning a deep purple its time to harvest. That usually happens right after the flowering, a few weeks after. If grass or any other plant is near a potato plant it will also turn purple, expecially the grass. Thats for Almond potatoes now, i don't know about other kinds. Mine haven't started to flower yet, usually in mid August, and we harvest the beginning of October.
O.k. now, let me understand this lesson for next year. I should dig up the tators after flowering but before they get that poisonious fruit on the plant???
I am a little confused. :-| Any potatoes I have ever grown, I have always left them until the plant has died back. Yes, you can harvest them after they bloom, but the taters are small. Dont get me wrong! The small ones are the BEST to fry up! But if I leave them, and wait.... I get nice BIG ones! :-D
My earlies I dig as soon as I start to see flower buds and continue to dig them as I need them. By the time I get to the end of the row the flowers could indeed have started to fruit. My maincrops however are a different beast altogether and I leave them in the ground until the top growth has flowered, fruited and started to die back. Only then will the skins on the spuds have cured so they will keep through the winter. Also, the maincrop spuds are the big boys for baking and roasting. My pink fur apple spuds won't be lifted until October or November time. Anyhow, a lovely harvest there Sjoerd. I will be going to the allotment tomorrow and hope to pick peas, broad beans and french beans, but my runners are still weeks away from harvest!
PETUNIA: I think that when you dig up your taters depends upon the type of potato that it is. I believe that in ideal circumstances you could wait until the plants begin to die back before lifting them. The problem with Mother Nature here in West Friesland is that she is unpredictable and never does anything twice in a row. I tend to let the potatos go as long as I feel they can...and I sometimes burrow into the side of the mound to check a couple of tubers to see how they are coming along. If I read back over what I just said, it seems a bit vague. I don't like, 'vague'. So I will say you could lift your spuds after or during the flowering as a rule of thumb. You see what happened to mine when I left them in until they fruited and began to die off. Those pics speak a thousand words. Q.A.: Well, I think that leaving the taters in as long as you do is obviously correct for the types that you are growing. The types that I am growing this year are exclusively the so-called "gourmet potato" types. I have noticed that they should be handled differently from say, Frieslanders, Eerstelings, Dorés and main crops or late mains. Those gourmet potatos are delicate little things that do not get big. They stay slendsr and elongated. I tested the limits of how long they could stay in the ground and they didn't actually get much larger than they were when I peeked at the roots and the ones that I lifted some 3 weeks prior. That's why I'm convinced that it all has to do with the type that one grows. When growing these delicacies this year, I was in uncharted territory. Next year I shall grow two of these ones again and a new kind. Here we have very moist weather and when the warmth of summer (usually) comes, Phytophthera is a big and yearly problem, so I am primarily interested in early or late-early potatos so that I can get them in and crated before the 'sickness' strikes. EJ: I tried only taking up just what I needed for a couple of meals at a time, sort of how you did, but then when sometimes I harvested large amounts to store away and give to family. The folks who grow maincrops or late ones often have problems with blight. My fingers are crossed for you when you go to harvest at the lottie tomorrow. Don't forget to take that camera!
We do suffer from blight on the allotment, but I am so far away from the main problem area I seem to get away with it. I am at the far end of the site, almost on my own, with trees one side of me, and apple trees splitting my own allotment in half. Don't know if this slows the blight spores down or not. Anyhow, pics all posted sjoerd. No spuds as I won't be digging any for a bit now until I use up all I have at home.
I've often wondered about "barriers" protecting spuds and toms from blight. Our allotment complex is so flat and open that when someone at the far end gets a sick plant we ALL get it. Last year every lottie on the complex had Phytophthera. It was sad. It sort of looked like someone had flown over the complex and dumped scalding water on all the tater and mater plots. I saw your pics of the harvest....Well done, meid!
