Potato Harvesting, Five Weekly
Stages from First Flowering
If you’re
going to grow potatoes for the first time here is what you can expect when you
begin to harvest them at different stages of their growth. This year is my
first year at growing potatoes. I planted 8 plants in buckets (The $100 Potato
post) and 5 more plants in the ground for a total of 13 plants.
The
plants in the ground I planned on harvesting one plant each week after flowering
to document the growth and yield by weight of each plant each week
successively. Harvesting when the first flowers bloom will result in ‘New
Potatoes’ with sizes between a quarter to a ping pong ball. Each successive
weekly harvest the new potatoes will get larger about the size of a golf ball.
I planted
the potatoes 3-17-12. Today they are almost 7 weeks old and 4 feet tall with
flowers beginning to bloom. Growers say that when the plant flowers ‘new
potatoes’ are just about ready to harvest. I thought I would dig up the first
plant and see what was going on underground. Sure enough the one plant had 8
oz. of new potatoes. In the photos you can see a large potato, which is the
seed potato. I thought by now it would be much smaller or gone. It is still
firm so I cut it up and inside it still looked like a good potato but there was
no taste at all and a strange firm texture.
Please
note that the length of time the potatoes have been growing is probably longer
than yours because I only get at best half a day of sun on them. This is
because my yard is heavily treed with oaks and I have only one small place next
to the garage that receives any sun at all.
Yukon Gold plants 4 feet tall with flowers. These are two of the first 5 plants I planted in the rose bed. I used cut up buckets to create collars for hilling the plants.
What potato flowers look like.
I first removed the bucket collar used for hilling.
Plant pulled from the soil.
All the potatoes removed from the plant and after digging in the dirt looking for all others that didn’t come out attached to the plant roots.
Here’s the first plant harvested
5-6-12
Yield,
8.0 oz. All cleaned up. The large one was the seed potato which was discarded.
The second plant harvested 5-12-12
Yield,
7.0 oz.
The third plant harvested 5-18-12
Yield, 8.2
oz. They’re getting bigger!
The fourth plant harvested 5-25-12
Yield,
13.2 oz.
What I
find interesting is none of the potatoes so far grew in the hilling only in the
dirt at grade level or below!
The fifth and final test plant harvested 6-1-12
Yield, 22.2 oz.
Conclusion:
It appears that you can harvest ‘new potatoes’
2-3 weeks after the plants flower and each plant will yield about ½ pound.
After 5-6 weeks they’ll be a little larger yielding about 1½ pounds per plant.
I’m waiting for the $100 Potato bucket planted
potatoes to die off and I will harvest those, which should be in 2 more weeks
or about 6-15-12. At that time I will conclude that test and growing method and
show the results.
In the last three photo's I used the same size
plate, a medium dinner plate, for a visual growth comparison.
12 comments:
Thanks for the documentation! Since we still haven't planted the 'taters (and probably won't get to it this year), it's nice to see SOMEbody doing it!
Are you sure you weren't an accountant in a previous life???
Looking really good, can't wait to see the yield on June 1st.
I love how you did this to show the growth. Great post.
Carolyn, Sandy and Becky,
Thanks.
When I was searching for potato growing information it was either how to plant or how to harvest at the end of the growing cycle. I never came across any in-between growing and harvesting information or yields. So I thought it would help the first time growers to see just what is going on underground at the time of flowering until plant die off. It has been interesting and now we know that when the potatoes flower you can begin to harvest new potatoes and have them for dinner. By the way I used supermarket organic potatoes for the seed potatoes and they appear to be working out just fine and a lot cheaper than commercial seed potatoes. More on that in a few weeks when I harvest the bucket experiment where 3 of the 8 buckets used commercial seed potatoes for a comparison.
Carolyn, I assure you I was no accountant, I can’t figure out a tax form to save my life. I am though a medical device and surgical instrument designer so testing and retesting everything is normal for me.
Thanks for the week by week photos, Mike. It's interesting to see how just a few days can make a difference in growth. The thought I'm having after reading this post is that potatoes can be eaten throughout the season if need be, that is, unlike some vegetable plants which take many, many weeks to complete their growth, the lowly potato is one that could be planted during hard times for an ongoing harvest. Just a thought.
We, too, used organic potatoes as seed this year -- so far, so good!
Blessings to you and yours this Memorial Day,
Lisa
i am using buckets and leaky washtub for my taters and i figure i am about two or three weeks behind your plantings. how long does it usually take before your taters get their blossoms? and what if they do not blossom?
Lisa,
The potatoes have been fun and educational so far. Can’t wait for the bucket potatoes to die off then harvest them to see if the bucket growing really worked.
You are right about timing the planting of additional garden goodies so you can have continued harvesting of fresh veggies throughout the summer until late fall. Potatoes and green beans would produce well with this method. It would also lessen the burden of canning lots of food all at once but have two or three canning sessions throughout the growing year. Gardens can take a lot of advanced planning to get the most out of them and that’s another topic I’m making notes about; to maximize the number of pounds of food grown per square foot of space.
Anon 8:27
My blossoms started showing at around 7-8 weeks from planting. As for; what if no blossoms appear? I would just let the plants grow to die-off and harvest.
I have read that Yukon Gold potatoes don't grow potatoes up the stem, mostly from the bottom. That is probably why hilling didn't add more potatoes.
Thanks Peggi,
I didn't know that but appears to be true with my current harvesting. Again thanks for the comment. I'll know more when I harvest the potatoes in the buckets and see if that holds true. if so then Yukon Golds would be a lot easier to grow. Spending the least amount of time in the garden by not having to hill works for me :-)
Awfully curious about whats growing in our beds as well. I'm nervous after all that work that it might not amount to much. :/
We will wait till it all dies back to maximize whatever is going to come of it all.
Stay@Home,
I know how you feel. The original 8 buckets I have potatoes in will be harvested this coming Friday. Yesterday I cut the died off to a couple inches above the soil. I'll post pics of the harvest good or bad.
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