Fran Farmer wrote:
On 18/07/2014 10:34 PM, Pavel314 wrote:
We grow some potatoes in the garden every year and every year I
harvest them the same way. I start at the edge of the bed and put
the pitchfork down about 3-4 inches, then I flip up the dirt in
front of the prongs. If there are potatoes there, they go into the
basket, if not, I keep moving on, stabbing and flipping along the
row until I find something. No matter how careful I am, I generally
impale a few tubers in the process. Not a big loss, we put those in
the "eat quick" pile and store the rest in the cellar. Does anyone
have a better way to harvest them?


I just use my gloved hands and bandicoot harvest as I need spuds IF
I'm growing in good friable soil.

If the soil is not so good I use a fork and shove it down the side of
the bed in one spot and work on form there as I need more spuds in the
kitchen. I know where I've harvested because I leave a hole and keep
workign onwards from where I started.

And potatoes don't need to produce a good lot of flowers to produce
spuds - as far as I'm concerned there is no correlation between flower
numbers and spud numbers.

I can't think of any direct conection either. At a general level perhaps
good flowering might indicate a healthy plant that stands a chance of good
tubers but that's about all. Strong tops are required for strong tubers but
not sufficient, that is you can get good tops with few taters but you can't
get good taters from poor tops.

If you are thinking of breeding your own cultivar then flowers do become
important.


David

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