Normal. they are just immature new potatoes. the tubers do form above the roots so they are normally close to the top of the ground. One reason for hilling up. The vine dies as the potatoes mature so one one normally waits for the vine to die before harvesting potatoes for storage. The immature one are known as "new" potato sand have a different but exceptional flavor boiled.. I always take a few for that purpose.( traditional snap beans with new potatoes)

So, even the photo of the bad foliage is not disease? It's just the vine dying?

If I understand you correctly, I can dig some of these potatoes on vines that have not died and use them right away. Which we'd probably do for the rest of the summer. If I want to keep them longer in the refrigerator, because I don't have a root cellar or other cold storage, then I should wait for the plants to die back to the ground and then dig them up? Which I won't have much room for.

Dig them up and eat them when you want, dig up the worst plants first, eat some every week until the plants are dead. You store them in the ground for now, dig them up as needed for dinner. "New" potatoes are very good to eat, but may not as be as big. Eat them during summer, you are gardening to get higher quality food, not store for Winter survival.

Some potatoes are not great for long storage anyway. 'Red Gold' and other "early" potatoes are not for long term storage like an Idaho russet from the store. 'Norland' and 'Yukon Gold' are more "early" potatoes. 'Red Pontiac', 'German Butterball', and russets are considered "late" potatoes that store longer.

It is normal for potatoes to look ragged or even start to die in July for me. I start them early in large grow bags, and they always look unsightly by mid July, more or less. Depending on the heat and rain. I try to eat them and not worry about long term storage.

Ohhhh.....store them in the ground!! Now that you say that, I remember reading that is how they used to do it in the olden days, I guess you could leave them there until before the ground freezes? And you leave them there AFTER you pull the foliage so they stop growing, right? This is like a Yukon Gold potato.

Anyone think my photo of unhealthy foliage is early blight?

For storage, you wait until all the foliage dies so the potatoes are dormant. You don't need to pull the foliage if there is any green. If they are green, they are still growing more potatoes. Let them be, let them go dormant if you want them for later. There is no hurry to dig up for storage, if the vines are still growing.

For eating now, just dig up what plants you want to harvest and eat now. These are "new" potatoes and are perfectly fine to eat, these are better quality than storage potatoes. Quality versus quantity, you get less potatoes by weight, but better quality.

Hello Ann,

Haven’t heard from you in a while-hope all is well.

My potato plants looked way worse than yours when I pulled them up. Some of them flowered like crazy, while others barely flowered at all and there was little difference in quality or production-last year none really flowered. Sometimes if you leave them in the ground too long, especially under wet conditions they will start to rot and/or begin chitting. I had several this year that had 2-3 inch sprouts growing from them, so I just replanted them. Most potatoes store pretty well in the ground, but if they start to get soft many below ground insects/worms will start to eat them, but will leave the harder ones alone. I lost a few giant potatoes this year from leaving them in the ground after the plants were mostly dead. There are several factors to weigh when deciding the appropriate time for harvesting-if you have a mostly dead potato plant you might try digging it up to see how they are doing.

Richard

Hi RD! Great to see you. All is well here, just my focus on the vegetable garden had some setbacks. Rabbits for one, maintaining the rest of the garden and a slow down in getting the beds ready to plant. But now that the summer is half over, [g] now I'm trying to focus on it more. I hope all is well with YOU!!

Well, this is great information thank you all. We stopped eating potatoes for awhile and now that we are and we love the Yukon Gold, they seem to be an easy crop for me in my part sun vegetable patch.

I want to get better at growing the potatoes. I didn't realize they form above the roots and while I did hill them up, I read somewhere that you can add some support and hill higher than ground level. It sounded like a great idea to make room for more potatoes, but I was confused and got busy and just left it with hilling. So I'll see how many I end up with.

I doubt that I'll end up leaving many of them in the ground, simply because I am low in tomatoes and peppers this year and have to have something to share with our kids. They might love new potatoes! And I grow in raised vegetable beds, so hopefully that helps in wet weather, they drain and dry out really well.

I think I started mine late this year, so they aren't quite looking raggedy right now and I am growing them in half sun, not full sun. I bought organic seed potato from The Potato Lady this year - Yukon Gold and Santina? which looks like another gold potato that is popular on that site. I still have some that I never got in the ground. I don't suppose I should try to plant them now? I don't even know what they look like right now.

Thank you all for all the great information. I'll let you know how it all works out!

prairiemoon, I am planting my late potatoes tomorrow. They are highly shriveled and green sprouted...that's perfectly ok for a quick start.