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Vegetable Gardening

Potato Question- Timeline

13 years ago

I live in So. Cal where temps lately (roughly a month) have been between 65-78 highs & 39-48 lows. We've had intermittent rain, but mostly sunshine.

Three weeks ago I cut my seed potatoes per the instructions & dug a deep trench & planted them, eye sides up, after letting the cut side harden overnight. I covered them with soil, leaving plenty of space for hilling, as the plant pops up.

Of course the night after we planted these potatoes, we had an unexpected frost hit (nothing major, since this is CA) & now I'm worried that might have hurt/killed the seed potatoes. I am concerned because it has been three weeks & there is no signs of plant life in the trench. We haven't had any other frosts & I am looking forward to the rest of this week because we are actually going to have pretty warm weather (low 80's).

Does anyone know how long it takes seed potatoes to start growing? If a couple more weeks goes by with no plants, should I dig one up to see if it is rotten, or damaged? I don't want to wait too long then find out they are dead & have to plant more later.

Any advice on this will do, as I have been quite unsuccessful with potatoes in the past. Thank you!

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Comments (6)

girlgroupgirl
13 years ago
Dig, and look. It happened here last year and the year before, a local farmer planted his potatoes and he lost them because of late frosts. I try and protect mine if we are going to get some frost. Lots of water and poorly draining soil can rot them out sometimes too.
MeLikeOkra
13 years ago
Its pretty unlikey that the frost hurt them, the ground temp a couple inches down would have been considerably higher than the air temp. The only time frost hase been an issue for me is after they have busted the ground. As usual, predicting when they should pop out of the ground isnt an exact science, so I would give them a week and then dig down and check 'em out ! ;)
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kingkongos
13 years ago
I had similar weather to you and my first potato popped up 3 weeks to the day...BUT the last potato to come up only emerged a few days ago - almost 6 weeks after planting. I would wait at least another week and then if there's still no sign, dig down and see if any roots have started growing...if there are, they should emerge soon after.
kmatcek
13 years ago
Just as a side note, I plant potatoes early and when a frost is predicted for the next night I hill the soil around the plants till they are covered up.
I do buy my seed potatoes really small, I like golf ball size, I do not cut them but plant them whole. This year I got real lucky the 50# tow sack I bought was mostly small taters. Its been years since I planted this much but we are eating alot more potatoes since the price of food has gotten out of hand.
Dan _Staley (5b Sunset 2B AHS 7)
13 years ago
Soil is an insulator. I highly doubt anything happened to the potatoes underground.

Patience.

Dan
mtam0707
Original Author
13 years ago
Thank you all for the advice. In the past not knowing anything about potatoes I bought the first pack I found & tried the "bag" planting. The plants grew and grew but when it came time to harvest I had pea-sized potatoes that were inedible, of course. Tried a second time only for the potatoes to rot in the bag under the soil & never planted (after waiting 12 weeks, too!).
This time I did some research, ordered online, cut only the largest potatoes, leaving smaller ones intact, got fertilizer & dug a huge trench in my backyard. LOL. Then that frost hit the next day & my doubts crept back in that I hadn't done something right (although to be fair I checked the weather & there was no hint @ frost).
But I'm glad this forum exists with helpful people like you all. Thanks again!

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