Harvesting potatoes

[Maggiethecat]

Planted Pentland Javelin first earlies about 12 weeks ago and they’ve just started to flower but foliage not really yellow yet.

Is it worth a shot at digging them
up now?

I'd personally leave longer.

Agree with PP. If you are very gentle you can dig in a bit with your hands to see what size the spuds are. Don't forget to cover them up.

Ok, will leave another couple of weeks - suppose the worst is bigger potatoes 😊

I dug mine up on Thursday and had mixed sizes. Probably I should have waited another week or two.

I had a decent crop though from four Pentland seed potatoes planted in a very large tub.

I will be cooking some tonight so looking forward to see what they taste like.

Let me know how they taste - hear they’re very good!

Been impressed that they’ve not been too attacked by slugs and have resisted blight.

Pentland Javelin are a first early and so are ready from 12 weeks onwards.

I'd furtle the yellowest one and see what is underneath but leave the plants in place until they start dying off. You can often get enough by furtling for a few meals in the weeks before the actual harvest.

As soon as the flowers are fully open I'd be having a furtle around with my fingers. You can even gently remove some of the outer potatoes and leave the rest to continue to grow. (The largest will always be right underneath the stem though).
I find that that small new potatoes are an absolute treat and we'll worth losing a bit of growth.

It's not a brilliant photo but think you can see the mix of sizes I got from the four plants. Several went yellow but not all so definitely think I should have waited bit longer to unearth them.

Love the word furtle.😆

I was going to say that too @Coastalcreeksider - never heard the word 😊

I've got a load of potato plants growing from my compost bin, presumably from old spuds chucked out previously? I'll leave it a bit longer then see if anything's actually grown.
I use to grow spuds in old compost bags with holes slashed in the bottom for drainage, but I haven't grown anything this year other than two sad looking tomato plants. 😳