Potatoes pruned back - have I ruined them?

[buffysmum]

Firstly 'hello' to you all - I'm a newbie and look forward to gleaning from your knowledge and experience. I've done a fair bit of gardening and I'm quite happy pruning, digging, transplanting etc. but I've never grown spuds before. We've got a small garden and so I've planted three bags of potatoes; unfortunately they are in partial shade - dictated by the garden layout. I'm assuming this is why they have grown way taller than expected and are taking much longer to flower than everyone else’s in the area. Trouble is, they grew so high that they toppled over - they were causing a huge mess in the small garden, so last night I pruned them - exactly as you would any other plant, by cutting cleanly just above a growth point. I'm sure the leaves will continue to bud and grow but my question is whether it’s too late for them to flower now and if they don’t, will the tuber that I'm waiting for actually develop or is this conditional on a flower forming and being pollinated? I realise I should maybe have been patient, but our garden is so small and they were making such a huge mess - there are no spuds in there at the moment so I felt I had nothing really to loose! Can anyone advise?

[teakdesk]

Welcome buffysmum


It would be a great help if you could state the exact variety of potato you have as some varieties do not flower (they still produce potatoes tho!!).


Potatoes take between 10 and 22 weeks from planting to become ready depending on variety.

Some varieties are a called first earlies and are ready in 10 to 13 weeks; maincrop varieties take around 18 to 22 weeks; second earlies and early maincrop fall between these two types.

The "early" does not refer to planting early (plant all spud types at the same time) but to the harvest date.


If you can tell us the name of the potato type then someone will know if they are early or late.

[buffysmum]

Hi Teakdesk, they're supposed to be 'earlies' and I planted them early April. Can't check the pack until later but will post the name then - can't remember it at the mo! I'm really curious to see whether anyone else has ever cut back their potatoes though and what results have been obtained after doing it. I'll have a furtle further down in the bags later on too - I've only peeked under the flaps and there are only very fine root threads to be seen. Would the young spuds develop evenly throughout the bag or would they be bottom to top/top to bottom growth order?? thanks for your reply!

[shirlthegirl43]

Hi and welcome to the vine.

Most people tie their spud foliage up if it is a problem when it droops.

The biggest spuds will be closest to the bottom of the bags.

[SarzWix]

I haven't purposely pruned potato tops before, but I've had foliage break off in winds etc, and still got a crop. The plant needs foliage to make food for the plant so if you cut it all off chances are you'd get no crop, but if you've left enough foliage to still feed the plant they should be ok.
Incidentally, our resident potato expert (Tattieman) recommends picking off the flower buds to divert the plant's energy into tuber growth, so don't worry about flowers

[buffysmum]

Hi Sarah and Shirley, thanks for replying. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best then. I made sure that I left enough foliage for photosynthesis but I must admit I was wondering whether it would now use its energy to try to grow more leaves instead of spuds... My reasoning was that if you stop tomatoes after a few trusses have formed to divert the energy to the fruit then it may work for the spuds too - although a totally different plant and process I accept! Oh well, we'll have to wait and see but I think I'll have to keep the growth restricted now - I'll report back in a few weeks with whatever the results are - who knows it may lead to much tidier pototo plants in our gardens! Maybe even topiary - who knows!!

[Rocketron]

Hi Sarah and Shirley, thanks for replying. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best then. I made sure that I left enough foliage for photosynthesis but I must admit I was wondering whether it would now use its energy to try to grow more leaves instead of spuds... My reasoning was that if you stop tomatoes after a few trusses have formed to divert the energy to the fruit then it may work for the spuds too - although a totally different plant and process I accept! Oh well, we'll have to wait and see but I think I'll have to keep the growth restricted now - I'll report back in a few weeks with whatever the results are - who knows it may lead to much tidier pototo plants in our gardens! Maybe even topiary - who knows!!

You're one of those "the glass is half full" people, aren't you ?

[Nicos]

High there Buffy'smum...and welcome to the Vine!!!

Planted in April??? That makes them 10-12 weeks then???

Depending on the variety you could well have some ready now.
If you'd got blight you'd of had to cut them back anyway- completely, so as to rescue the crop.

So.....I think you're going to be fine- maybe give them an extra bit of watering to help them along???

You've reminded me of my first attempt at spuds in the garden- planted under trees the tops grew about 10ft long!!!!...and only about 5 medium spuds per plant. Didn't plant them there again- but in tubs in a sunnier spot.

Years later we decided to dig up that part of the garden to lay a patio....14" down we hit an original patio which had been buried

Poor things had no chance

[buffysmum]

Hi again all.. Ok, when I got home on Friday I checked the pack (which I kept) - they're Home Guard so according to the info on the packaging and everywhere on the web they should be ready fairly soon - I planted them in early April. I won't rummage around in the bags any more this weekend incase I break the babies off without realising it - if I wait until the end of July they'll have been in almost 16 weeks so we'll see what happens! They're still fine by the way - new leaves looking very strong and green so they're def not dead! Cheers to all.

[bluemoon]

*Sigh* You're going to come back and say you got 10lb of delicious spuds per plant and next year we're all going to be pruning ours. You're going to say that making them into a topiary peacock gives the best yields, but a cute bunny rabbit shape comes a close second - and I've half an allotment full!!!!!!! I'll have to quit work just to look after the spuds and neglect my family (more than I normally do) and rope my grandkids in for some child labour and....
Welcome to the vine, but if this experiment works please keep it under your hat.