When Do You Know When to Harvest Potstoes
Potatoes are an easy-to-grow and productive crop that y'all can enjoy harvesting right from your lawn. They go into the ground in early on spring, are harvested late summer, and can be stored through fall and winter.
Harvesting your potatoes tin be a fun family activity with the reward of tender, tasty tubers to melt afterwards. Store-bought potatoes don't accept anything on homegrown ones!
Here'south what y'all need to know about when to harvest potatoes, how to dig them up, and how to store them correctly.
When to harvest potatoes from your garden
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Knowing when to harvest potatoes can feel intimidating. After all, you can't see the tubers before yous harvest them! Luckily, one time you know what to expect for your potato plants will tell you when it'southward time to harvest.
These same techniques and tips for knowing when to harvest potatoes apply whether you lot're harvesting potatoes in containers, grow bags, traditional beds, or another method.
Your tater crop can be harvested at two stages depending on what kind of potatoes you want.
You look for dissimilar signs depending on which blazon of spud you want: new potatoes or storage potatoes.
When to harvest new potatoes
New potatoes can be thought of every bit baby potatoes.
They are pocket-size, thin-skinned, and very tender. Considering of their thin skins, new potatoes don't store well, only they are some of the most delicious potatoes you lot'll e'er cook with and consume!
So how exercise you know when to harvest new potatoes?
The cardinal is to watch your plants for the right signs. Once flowers form on your potato plants it'due south about time. Wait until the flowers offset to fade and drop off the plant. Y'all can then start harvesting, and your potatoes volition remain in this tender phase for ii-3 weeks.
Making utilise of a potato grow bag with a flap tin help you continue an heart on your potatoes. You can see how big (or small) they are and guess whether you lot want to choice some for dinner.
When to harvest storage potatoes
Also chosen main-crop potatoes, storage tubers are larger and have thick skins. This is the type yous can cure and go along over the winter months.
You may need to protect your white potato beds or containers from wild animals, pets, or even children so they can stay in the ground long plenty to become storage potatoes. I once had a dog who loved digging up potatoes and then I had to eat my entire crop fresh that twelvemonth instead of storing them!
What do irish potato plants look like when ready to harvest?
Knowing when to harvest potatoes for storage is all well-nigh watching your plants.
The leaves of your plants will get-go to turn yellowish at the end of the season. In one case the foliage is completely chocolate-brown and dry, information technology'south almost time to harvest, but at that place are a few steps you can accept to better your crop.
Many growers recommend cut the leaf almost all the way to the basis once it'south completely dark-brown. (Just make sure yous call back where your potatoes are!)
And then, let the tubers go along sitting in the footing for 10-14 days after you cut back the foliage. This allows the skins to go good and thick for storage. Afterward this time period you can become ahead and harvest them.
The one exception to this is if your soil is very wet at the end of the flavor. If this is the case, it'south better to harvest every bit shortly as the leaf dies back to forestall your potatoes from rotting in the ground.
Also, be sure to harvest them all, ready or not, before the first difficult frost!
How to harvest potatoes
Now that you know when to harvest potatoes, the fun part is actually excavation them upwardly! That is, as long as you don't mind getting a petty dirty.
The biggest tip to remember when harvesting your tubers is to do your best not to cut into them with your shovel, peculiarly if you desire to keep them in storage.
This can exist easier said than washed, only y'all'll get better with practise.
How to harvest new potatoes
New potatoes can often be harvested just by using your hands rather than a garden tool.
If you grew yours in the ground, accomplish with your gloved hand into the side of 1 of the hills you piled up around your potatoes. Feel effectually gently, collecting tubers as you go. Once y'all have as many as you want, pile the soil support and so the residue of your potatoes tin can go along maturing.
If you're growing in raised beds or some kind of container, merely advisedly dig your manus down through the soil until you striking potato gold. Lift them out gently and business firm the soil back around your plants when you're washed.
Of class, if you're simply growing potatoes to swallow them new and not for storage, you tin simply dig them all upwardly at in one case.
How to harvest storage potatoes
Before digging upward your whole potato crop, information technology'due south a proficient idea to dig upward a test section get-go. Y'all can check one of the tubers to run across if the skin on it is thick and well-attached. If the pare can hands be rubbed off with your finger, you need to wait longer to harvest.
Each gardener has their preferred tool for digging out their potatoes. A garden fork or a sturdy shovel are the two best options.
Whichever one you work with, the key is to dig downward about a pes away from the plants and first to loosen and elevator up the root mass. Once you lot've gone all the way effectually a section of plants, you should be able to pull up the chief root system, which will have lots of potatoes attached.
When y'all employ a earthworks fork or shovel, try to dig nether the constitute and lift it complimentary, allowing the dirt to fall through the tines.
Pull the potatoes off of the root mass and identify them in a container. Once you've dug upwardly your plants, go dorsum through the soil with your hands to discover potatoes still hiding at that place. There will be some extras so don't skip this pace!
If you lot accidentally poke or piece whatsoever potatoes (which happens to everyone), set them bated to melt with.
How to store potatoes
After harvesting, castor the dirt off your potatoes, but don't wash them or get them moisture. As well, don't go out them out in the sun too long or you'll get dreaded light-green potatoes (which can make you sick if eaten).
Cure your potatoes by laying them out in a cool, dark, and dry location for 1-2 weeks. The platonic temperature for curing is anywhere betwixt 45-60°F.
Once cured, your potatoes tin can exist stored in bags or boxes that have ventilation holes, but don't layer them too deeply because this encourages rotting.
Sort through your tubers before storing and discard any that are bruised, cut, green, or prove signs of rot.
Your storage area should exist dark and preferably somewhere between forty-50°F. This could be a cold basement, root cellar, or garage attached to the home. Check on your potatoes regularly for signs of rotting or shriveling.
Serious gardeners and homesteaders frequently utilize a harvest rack to store potatoes. Root vegetable storage bins and bags can besides work, too.
Never shop potatoes in your fridge or keep them next to apples. Depending on variety, your tubers tin can final for 4-6 months in storage.
There are ii reasons to avert storing your potatoes in the fridge.
One is that potatoes, even afterwards they're harvested, convert starch to sugar and vice versa depending on the temperature. When stored in the fridge, your potatoes will convert starch to sugar, which tastes weird.
Another, more important reason to avoid putting your potatoes in the fridge is that storing them in the fridge can pb to higher levels of acrylamide, a potentially hazardous compound produced when you cook potatoes at high temperatures. Acrylamide can cause cancer in animals, and then information technology might exist harmful to human health, too (source).
Spud varieties to abound
Here are a few of the best varieties for new and storage potatoes, plus some fun and unusual spud varieties thrown in:
York Gold are tasty yellow potatoes that can be dug upwardly new or for storage (six+ months). They're a classic option with smoother mankind than russet potatoes. Yukon gilded are one of my personal favorites! They're delicious for smooth, creamy mashed potatoes
Yukon Gem is a like illness-resistant multifariousness.
The russet Burbank is a white potato that'due south great for baking and fries. It's long-lasting in storage.
Red Pontiac potatoes have red pare white interiors. They are known for high yields and are good for storage. They're an splendid selection for abode gardeners!
Fingerling potatoes are long, sparse potatoes best eaten fresh for a succulent, gourmet taste.
The Adirondack Bluish white potato has blue skin and blue to purple mankind. Remarkably, it keeps its color when cooked!
These potatoes are much more beautiful in real life than this photograph suggests.
With hundreds of varieties of potatoes out there to effort, you accept a ready-made excuse to abound potatoes in your garden every year!
And if you e'er get tired of excavation them all upward, you can try growing in containers that just go dumped out at the end of the season. Either way, you're likely to agree that freshly dug and cooked potatoes are the best!
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Natasha Garcia-Lopez is an avoid dwelling-gardener and proud owner of 88 acres of state in rural West Virginia. She was a member of the Association for Living History Farms and Agricultural Museums for many years and is currently enrolled in the Oregon Country University Master Gardner Short Course program so she tin can better assist you with your gardening questions.She holds a document in natural skincare from the School of Natural Skincare.
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