Grow Your Own: Potatoes

Lesson 5: Harvesting Maincrop and Late Potatoes

The Main Event
Treat 2nd early potatoes as earlies, although some varieties can be kept in the ground longer. They should be ready to harvest after around 15 weeks. Maincrop potatoes will reach maturity after 18 weeks. By this time, the foliage is turning brown. Cut down the foliage and leave the potatoes in the ground for another fortnight before lifting for storage.

Sound Storage
Immediately after lifting, leave the tubers to dry out for a few hours. Examine the crop and use or destroy any damaged tubers. Only store completely sound potatoes. Place them in boxes with raised corner posts, in a dark, frost-free location. Cover them if necessary to ensure they don't turn green. Inspect them periodically.

Welcome Latecomers
Your home-grown potato experience needn't end in the autumn. Early varieties planted in late summer will provide crops in late autumn or even winter. Some suppliers prepare seed potatoes especially for this purpose. Choose sheltered positions or use the space vacated by your genuine early crop, after improving the soil with well forked-in compost and general purpose organic fertilizer. (This follow-on technique is an exception to the rule of not growing potatoes in the same spot within three years.) Lift in late autumn or cover with straw and leave for a few more weeks. Fresh, home-grown potatoes are guaranteed to lift a winter supper!