Harvest before frost

[FromCali]

Not many people know the secret to growing new potatoes. Plants have the ability to grow more roots and more new potatoes every place soil touches the plant. If you kill soil up 3" high then maybe the plant will grow 3 new potatoes. If you hill soil up 6" then maybe you get 6 new potatoes. If you hill soil up 9" high then maybe you get 9 new potatoes. Plants have a built in clock 3 month and plant die. Keep soil hilled up so there are never very many leaves for the first 6 weeks. Once you have seed potatoes hilled up 12" high that is good enough.

My grandfather did not hill potato plants he pushed the plants over on the soil then shovel soil on the plant stems to cover them up. He planted a 3 ft wide bed 40 ft long, he made all the plants lay on there side then he shoveled soil on them. It seems like more work to me but he had how own way of doing hilling. His 3' x 40' bed produced 400 lbs of new potatoes. His Illinois soil was soft and sandy and every evening about 5 pm it rained for about 10 minutes. It was very rare for it to get hotter than 90° in Illinois.

I live in TN summer now it is 100° f hot dry desert all summer with 1 small rain per month. If I don't want I don't have new potatoes.

How do you dig potatoes in your hill soil up method?

 

[FromCali]

Ok, that makes more sense. Give them a couple weeks more keeping them watered. When the tops start falling over and turning brown the spuds are ready to harvest. If frost is imminent before they are ready, protect them if you can.

I see the top start falling over and turning brown now.

 

[Meadowlark]

I see the top start falling over and turning brown now.

If they were my potatoes, I'd probably "rob " the top ones for eating now and let the others continue for a few more days. There is still a good bit of green showing in some of those plants.

Well done!

Regarding digging, for relatively small numbers of hills, I just pull up the plants roots and all by hand and then pick out the new potatoes. I'll be doing that soon myself in my small fall potato crop which like yours has just a few days to maturity.

When growing several hundred pounds which I do every spring, I like to harvest with a middle buster...makes it easier on the old back,