Potatoes are simple to develop in your yard the place you’ll experiment with completely completely different varieties. When to reap potatoes is decided by your space and the sort you might be rising. Spuds are a warm-season crop throughout the North, on account of frost and light-weight freezes will kill the tops, and a cool-season crop throughout the South and West. Proper right here’s what you must find out about how and when to reap potatoes to get in all probability probably the most out of this versatile vegetable.
Sorts of Potatoes
Each type of potato has been bred and chosen for specific qualities similar to 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 necessary lessons of potatoes based mostly totally on harvest time: first early choice, second early choice, and necessary crop.
First early varieties are planted between the highest of February and early Might. They generally are in a position to be harvested 10 weeks after planting. These varieties are very good decisions when planting in potato develop baggage or big containers. A few to seek for embrace ‘Arran Pilot’, ‘Foremost’, and ‘Pentland Javelin’ amongst many others.
Second early varieties are typically harvested 12-16 weeks after planting. They embrace ‘Estima’, ‘Marfona’, and ‘Wilja’.
Basic crop varieties embrace ‘Cara’, ‘King Edward’, ‘Pink Fir Apple’, ‘Romano’, and loads of others. These varieties are left the longest throughout the flooring, usually until fall. Then they’re typically all harvested directly for storage.
When to Harvest Potatoes
As quickly because the haulm (stems & leaves) start to flower on early varieties, that could be a constructive sign that the plant has potatoes ready to reap.
Should you 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 carefully take away a few potatoes from the underside with out uprooting all of the plant.
“New” potatoes fashion deliciously sweet straight from the yard on account of their sugars haven’t however remodeled to starch as it will in mature spuds.
Harvesting Methods
Each class of potato is harvested in any other case.
- For earlies, dig a yard fork in correctly beneath the potatoes and lever them out of the soil, whereas on the an identical time pulling up on the haulm.
- For necessary crop varieties, take away the stems and leaves about two weeks sooner than harvesting so that the skins on the potatoes thicken up. Elevate the precept crop with a yard fork on a dry, warmth dry and depart them lying throughout the photo voltaic for a day or two to let the skins dry.
How one can Treatment and Retailer Up to date Potatoes
For individuals who depart potatoes in gentle for too prolonged, this may encourage the tuber to point out 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 usually 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’ll “treatment” them, which toughens up the potato’s pores and pores and skin and extends its storage life. To take motion, depart freshly harvested potatoes for two weeks in a darkish place with extreme humidity and a temperature of fifty to 60°F, loosely defending the tubers with burlap. Spring and summer season harvested potatoes aren’t usually saved, nonetheless you’ll preserve them for 4 to 5 months if cured first at 60 to 70°F for a minimum of 4 days after which saved at a temperature of 40°F.
After drying fall-harvested potatoes for 1 to 2 days on the underside, treatment 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 full darkness in a single layer. On no account layer or pile potatoes better than 6 to eight inches deep or they may rot additional merely.