How and When to Harvest Potatoes

Potatoes are easy to develop in your yard the place you might experiment with utterly totally different varieties. When to reap potatoes relies upon upon your space and the type you’re rising. Spuds are a warm-season crop inside the North, on account of frost and lightweight freezes will kill the tops, and a cool-season crop inside the South and West. Proper right here’s what you might find out about how and when to reap potatoes to get in all probability essentially the most out of this versatile vegetable.

Styles of Potatoes

Each form of potato has been bred and chosen for explicit qualities resembling the color of the pores and pores and skin and flesh or whether or not or not it is good for baking, boiling, or used for salad. There are moreover three important courses of potatoes based mostly totally on harvest time: first early choice, second early choice, and important crop.

First early varieties are planted between the highest of February and early May. They often are in a position to be harvested 10 weeks after planting. These varieties are splendid decisions when planting in potato develop baggage or large containers. A few to seek for embody ‘Arran Pilot’, ‘Foremost’, and ‘Pentland Javelin’ amongst many others.

Second early varieties are generally harvested 12-16 weeks after planting. They embody ‘Estima’, ‘Marfona’, and ‘Wilja’.

Most vital crop varieties embody ‘Cara’, ‘King Edward’, ‘Pink Fir Apple’, ‘Romano’, and loads of others. These varieties are left the longest inside the ground, typically until fall. Then they’re generally all harvested immediately for storage.

When to Harvest Potatoes

As quickly because the haulm (stems & leaves) start to flower on early varieties, that may be a optimistic sign that the plant has potatoes ready to reap.

For those who want to harvest a few tender “new” potatoes from throughout the sting of each plant when the vines start to flower (about 8 weeks after planting), use your hand to fastidiously take away a few potatoes from the underside with out uprooting your total plant.

“New” potatoes fashion deliciously sweet straight from the yard on account of their sugars haven’t however reworked to starch as it’ll in mature spuds.

Harvesting Strategies

Each class of potato is harvested in any other case.

• For earliesdig a yard fork in correctly below the potatoes and lever them out of the soil, whereas on the an identical time pulling up on the haulm.
• For important crop varietiestake away the stems and leaves about two weeks sooner than harvesting so that the skins on the potatoes thicken up. Elevate the first crop with a yard fork on a dry, warmth dry and go away them lying inside the photo voltaic for a day or two to let the skins dry.

Recommendations on the best way to Treatment and Retailer Up to date Potatoes

Once you go away potatoes in delicate for too prolonged, this may increasingly encourage the tuber to indicate inexperienced and sprout. Pack clear, dry potatoes in burlap or paper sacks and retailer them in a darkish, cool, nonetheless frost-free place. Alternatively, they’re typically saved on trays as long as no lights get to the tubers.

If any potatoes have been pierced with the yard fork whereas harvesting, you might “therapy” them, which toughens up the potato’s pores and pores and skin and extends its storage life. To take motion, go away freshly harvested potatoes for two weeks in a darkish place with extreme humidity and a temperature of fifty to 60°F, loosely overlaying the tubers with burlap. Spring and summer season season harvested potatoes aren’t typically saved, nonetheless you might maintain them for 4 to 5 months if cured first at 60 to 70°F for on the very least 4 days after which saved at a temperature of 40°F.

After drying fall-harvested potatoes for 1 to 2 days on the underside, therapy them at 50 to 60°F and extreme humidity for 10 to 14 days. As quickly as cured, retailer your spuds in a cool, dry spot in entire darkness in a single layer. Under no circumstances layer or pile potatoes larger than 6 to eight inches deep or they may rot additional merely.