As a general rule harvest potato’s when the top half of the plant starts to die off. Start with a pitchfork 8-10 inches from the plant, pry upward to expose potatoes. Make sure the potato is not green if it is then leave potatoes for additional week. Cracks in the soil can be a sign potatoes are ready to harvest typically 3 to 4 months after planting.
How to Harvest Potatoes?
Harvesting potatoes is pretty straightforward, it’s really just about digging them up. You can use any tool that you have that will dig far enough in the ground to pull them up.
You can use a pointed shovel, but they can sometimes slice the potatoes while you’re digging so you have to be careful. A pointed shovel might damage your tubers which is the part of the potato that you actually eat.
Garden forks are much better because they won’t cause as much damage to the potatoes. Get a nice sturdy garden fork without a curve that can dig through a foot of soil without breaking.
Start about 8-10 inches away from the plant, dig down and pull the potatoes up. Watch out for any irrigation system you may have installed underneath the ground and make sure not to damage it.
Carefully dig and toil the soil around to find little stragglers that may have run off the main plant stem.
After you pull them out, put them in a bucket and rinse the dirt off them. Flip the bucket over in some grass or an area without any dirt and wash them off again to get rid of any excess dirt. Make sure to use clean water when washing your potatoes off.
Let them dry in a shady spot for a while before storing them. Sunlight will turn potatoes green, so if you place them in the shade in the morning make sure they’re in a place where the sun won’t hit them later in the day.
How do You Know When Potatoes are Ready for Harvest?
Knowing when to harvest potatoes is 10x more important than the actual process of harvesting them. Potatoes fully mature about 3-4 months from when you planted them, but there are signs you want to look for the know exactly when to pull them up.
Potatoes are closely related to the tomato, and potato flowers will look like tomato flowers if you are familiar with those. They will form a little fruit at the top of the stem, about 6-8 weeks from when you planted them.
Eventually, this little bud will fall off which indicates there are potatoes are born, but not necessarily mature. You want to look at when the little fruit ball falls off, not when it forms.
Once it falls off then we can start checking for other indicators that some really nice potatoes are maturing under the ground.
Soon after the fall look for signs of fissures in the soil. As the tubers expand, they’ll split the ground open.
If you used clay dirt the fissures will be super obvious, but if you used sandy soil it might take a little more time for the fissures to show.
When you notice the fissures and the little fruit ball is gone, that’s when it’s a pretty good time to harvest. Unless you want some puny potatoes, make sure you wait for the tubers to fully expand indicated by the fissure being fully formed.
A fully formed fissure is going to show an obvious crack in the soil that hasn’t changed after about a week because the potatoes have fully matured and they pushed up the soil to fit their presence.
Letting potatoes fully form also allows the skin to toughen up in the ground before pulling them up so that they last longer in storage. If you’re going to eat them fresh it doesn’t matter. Potatoes are edible as soon as the fruit ball falls off, but the longer you let them mature the bigger they will be.
Make sure to watch them closely once you start noticing the fissure and harvest them when you feel they’re ready. If you leave them in the ground too long they may start to rot or some potatoes may start to grow new flowers separately and you’ll have to wait until the new ones grow.
How Many Potatoes will One Plant Produce?
Each plant’s yield will vary depending on the type of potato, the amount of fertilizer you use, and where you plant them.
The best way to get a large yield from each plant is to get seeds from a farmer’s market or another gardener. Sometimes seeds from grocery stores are mass-produced and may have chemicals in them that affect the amount that will yield.
Typically, each plant will yield about 7 or 8 potatoes.
The weather will play a part in your yield size and you’ll want to closely monitor your moisture levels to make sure the soil stays moist. Snow is going to kill them, so if you’re in an area with heavy snow or ice in the winter you’ll want to make sure you plant them when you have a good 3-4 months of fair weather.
From each plant, you’ll typically get about 4-5 big potatoes then 2-3 smaller ones. There are a few things that you can do to impact the size of your tubers and your overall yield.
Make sure to plant your potatoes in a location with lots of sun so they can get some photosynthesis going on.
Planting your potatoes on a hill stabilizes the stem of the plant which promotes the development of more tubers to maximize your yield. Watering your potatoes properly increases the yield significantly. Moist soil is not too wet, and not too dry.
Using fertilizer on your soil before you plant your potatoes, and again after the little fruit ball forms will provide helpful nutrients to increase the size of your yield. Using mulch on top of your soil will hold moisture and reduce weeds that like to grow around potatoes and inhibit their growth. We discuss how to mulch your vegetable garden in this post.
Knowing how and when to harvest potatoes can make the difference between having a full course meal and having a snack. Having the perfect timing is paramount, but carefully using the proper tools ensures that they’ll come out in one piece.
Making sure to properly care for your plants and the location you plant them is going to be important for your yield size. This may take a little practice, but by taking the right steps you’ll have pounds of plump, juicy potatoes next season.
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