Potatoes

[October]

Sorry if this is a silly question - how do you know when to dig up the potatoes? I seem to remember as a child my dad would let them have flowers, then when the flowers died, he dug up the spuds.

Also, do you have to earth them up when you have planted them in heapy rows, or is it only if you have planted them 'flat'?

Thanks to all.

We are enjoying our new allotment so much! We were even up there in the rain this morning planting out the pumpkins!

[TEB]

HI October,
it depends on whether they are first, second earlies or maincrop etc. first earlies produce usually the quickest crop with maincrop taking the longest. With First earlies I wait for the flowers to form and then have a little fondle (firtle), with second and maincrop I tend to wait until the flowers wilt and turn yellowish. You earth up to prevent the tubers from seeing sunlight as this can turn the spuds green and poisonous

[Alice]

Hello October, your potatoes are ready when they have flowered (but sometomes they don't flower) and the shaws start to die down. Roughly, this is about 13 weeks after planting for earlies and 18 weeks for maincrops. It's not an exact science, so round about those times have a wee dig about under the shaws amd see what's there. If it's too soon, give it another week or two and try again. Hope you get a good crop.

[HeyWayne]

I too am a little uncertain as to when to stop earthing up, when to dig up, what a tuber is etc.

Found this diagram on the internerd which helped me understand a bit what a potato plant looks like and what earthing up does.

http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/cro...s02-f1-1-1.jpg

This page was also helpful:

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...%3D1%26hl%3Den

Good luck with the crops. I'll be making my first exploratory digs soon too!

[Earthbabe]

We've had a dig and tasted the first ones but the harvest was small as were the spuds. More chats really but Miss EB is very partial. I am leaving them a little longer so we get a better crop. Interestingly only some of the second earlies are developing flower buds at the mo.

Strawbs are looking good though.

[moggssue]

I'm just starting my first ever potatoes - what are shaws? I take it you mean the stems?

[October]

Spuds

I didn't know what shaws were either! But I think it is the whole plant...?

[October]

Thank you for these two helpful links. I read them both carefully and have decided Iplanted the spuds too deeply. Oh well - too late now. I don't think thye have been in the ground for 13 weeks - we only got the allotment at the end of March.. Maybe I'll wait a little longer before grubbing round underneath them. They all have lots of flowers though - and when I bought them they had really long sprouty bits on them. They were called red duke of york.

[TEB]

how deep dig you sow them , I sowed red duke of york about 6" on 17th March and plan on leaving them to a couple of weeks into June but will check beforehand.

[Flummery]

I've always called the top growth on a spud the haulm. I only heard of them called shaws when I joined this group. I wonder if it's a local expression gone national?

[Alice]

Potato shaws are what you probably call haulms. It's the top growth on the potatoes.

[moggssue]

Thanks Alice, now I understand!

[Alice]

Shaws is the Scottish word for haulms Flummery. I'd never heard of haulms til I joined the Vine.

[October]

How deep I dug

Think I planted the red duke of yorks about 6" too, so maybe all is not lost. Been away a couple of days, can't wait to get up there this afternoon - if it doesn't rain too hard. I'm not really a fair-weather gardener, but the other day I looked like the Yeti with the amount of sticky mud on my boots!