Potato growing

OK, I've a really stupid question, but I've never grown potatoes before!! How do I know when they're ready?? They are growing apace, are they ready when the flowers appear?

 

Depends on the variety but it is best to scrap away some soil and take a look. If you want max yield leave them till the tops die off. you will only get a few small potatoes this early.

 

Thanks! I'm not in a hurry and don't want to spoil them by being impatient...just wanted to know!!!

 

If you have plenty of plants try harvesting some after the right number of weeks (depends on variety, best to look it up). This is particularly the case if you have First Early varieties, some (like Rocket) start to be ready after about 8 weeks. People will have varying views on whether they taste better if left longer / shorter ... best you form your own view!

In our household we want New Potatoes as soon as they start to be ready - even if we have to lift several plants to get a meal - but we have space, and a decent area set aside to Spuds. For us Early Spuds that have been left "quite a while" after they become ready don't taste as good as when young (and we plant them in succession to try to get them all at about the right time).

If you are growing maincrop, for storage, then you can leave them until they die right down and the tuber skins have formed well (and normally they are left on the surface, after harvesting, for a few hours, to harden up the skins so they can then be handled with less risk of bruising them).

Often flowering is a signal, but some varieties don't flower ... and my Wife would say that that is too late to be harvesting because already they are getting on the big side for good New Potato size & flavour ...

In the meantime make sure that none of the new spuds are poking through the soil surface, 'coz they will go green. Cover them with some earth, or mulch with grass clipping s [provided you haven't used anything on the lawn to kill the weeds recently ...]

 

I've grown Rocket again this year and have just harvested the main batch of them, they have performed really well this year, we got over 30lb of spuds from a 4ftx4ft square; they were between golf ball and almost tennis ball sizes, perfect for us. We have been having them for meals since and the flavour is great this year, must be down to the wet spring we've had.

Ours had been in the ground for about 9 weeks, normally I would have left them for about another 3 weeks but the 'few' flowers they did produce went over so I carefully lifted a couple of plants and found they were ready...