Potato

Typical timeline

• the plantMID-FEB – MAR

  Chitting

  Seed potatoes wake in the light — stand them eyes-up somewhere bright and cool (7–10 °C) and they grow stubby green sprouts. Dark makes long pale ones that snap at planting.

  Stand the tubers eyes-up in the light and watch the eyes open.

  see it on the strip ↑
• the plantAPR – AUG

  Haulm rush

  Shoots break soil two to four weeks after planting, then the haulm races to close canopy. Cool is the whole trick — growth is happiest under 20 °C and tuber-making shuts down in real heat.

  Once shoots show, it sprints — hill soil over them as they rise.

  see it on the strip ↑
• the plantSEP – MID-OCT

  Dying back

  The haulm yellows and flops on purpose — the plant is done sending sugar down and the skins are setting. Two weeks after the tops die, the tubers lift clean.

  Yellowing tops aren't a problem — they're the dinner bell.

  see it on the strip ↑
• floweringJUN – JUL

  Flowering

  White-to-violet stars with a yellow beak — a nightshade flower through and through. Flowering roughly marks tuber set below; plenty of cultivars skip or drop their buds with no harm done.

  Flowers up top usually mean baby tubers are forming below.

  see it on the strip ↑
• fruiting · rareJUL – AUG

  True berries

  A few cultivars set little green tomato-like berries — the potato's TRUE fruit, full of seed and solanine. Breeders treasure them; everyone else must not eat them.

  Green cherry-tomato lookalikes? The potato's real fruit — poisonous, so look, don't taste.

  see it on the strip ↑
• undergroundMID-MAY – JUN

  Tubers set

  Stolon tips swell into pea-sized tubers once the soil sits near 15–18 °C — the crop's whole count is decided in these quiet weeks. Even moisture now is also the common-scab defence.

  see it on the strip ↑
• undergroundJUL – MID-SEP

  Tubers bulking

  The hidden harvest swells fastest now — every leaf up top is pumping sugar down. A dry swing during bulking is the classic cause of knobbly, hollow or split potatoes.

  see it on the strip ↑

Care milestones

• watchMID-FEB – MAR

  Chit in the light

  Set seed potatoes eyes-up in egg boxes on a bright, cool windowsill about six weeks before planting — short green chits get the crop off to a two-week head start.

  see it on the strip ↑
• sowLATE MAR – APR

  Plant out

  Plant the chitted tubers a hand-deep once the soil reaches about 8 °C and the hard frosts are done — in cold wet ground they sulk and rot instead of sprouting.

  see it on the strip ↑
• mulchMAY – JUN

  Hill up

  Pull soil or mulch over the stems as they rise, leaving just the tips out. Hilling is where the crop forms — and it keeps light off the tubers, which otherwise green up and turn bitter with solanine.

  see it on the strip ↑
• waterJUN – AUG

  Steady water

  From flowering on, never let the bed swing dry — potatoes are shallow-rooted, and steady moisture through tuber set and bulking is most of the yield.

  see it on the strip ↑
• watchJUL – AUG

  Blight watch

  Warm muggy spells are late-blight weather — the Irish-famine mould moves in days. At the first dark, water-soaked leaf blotches, cut and bin the affected haulm; the tubers below are usually still safe.

  see it on the strip ↑
• harvestSEP – MID-OCT

  Cure & lift

  Stop watering when the haulm yellows, cut it down, and leave the tubers two more weeks underground to set their skins. Lift on a dry day and cure in the dark — light is the enemy of a stored potato.

  see it on the strip ↑

Botanical drawing

Nouvelle iconographie fourragère pl. 84 (Gourdon & Naudin, 1871)