You can harvest potatoes as soon as they reach the size you desire. Generally, “new” potatoes are ready approximately 60 to 90 days from planting, depending upon the weather and the potato variety. One sign that young potatoes are ready is the formation of flowers on the plants.
Potato plants will start to flower towards the end of their growing season as an end-of-the-season effort to release their seeds for repopulation. Generally, you will start to see flowers 55 to 60 days after planting a seed potato in the ground.
What does it mean when potatoes Bloom?
A potato plant flowers when close to maturity so it can reproduce. The flowers may lead to green fruit that has seeds. A potato plant flowers as it gets closer to maturity and signals that “new potatoes” (small tubers) are ready for harvest.
One way to think about this is Potato plants produce flowers during the end of their growing season. These turn into the true fruit of the plant, which resemble small green tomatoes. Potato plant flowering is a normal occurrence, but the flowers usually just dry up and fall off rather than producing fruit.
When do potato plants flower?
Potato plants flower towards the end of their growing season, when the plant is close to maturity. It is nothing to be concerned about – in fact, it is a sign that the potato plants are doing well! However, you should not harvest the potatoes right when the flowers start to form.
This is what I researched. Potato plants can still produce large and perfectly healthy tubers, even if the plant never flowers at all. You can wait until the plant itself dies back (leaves turn yellow, and plant dries up) and harvest mature potatoes 2 to 3 weeks later.
How long after planting potatoes do you harvest (and why)?
Usually new potatoes are harvested 10 weeks after planting the potato plant. When the flowers of the potato plants start to bloom the first time, it is time to harvest the new potatoes.
The most usefull answer is: You can dig potatoes before the plant produces flowers. There are likely to be at least some new potatoes (smaller, thin-skinned potatoes) that form before the potato plant flowers. If you dig potatoes before they flower, you might get smaller tubers (“new potatoes”) instead of large ones.