How big do PinkFirApples get?

[antipodes]

This year I was actually able to get PFA potatoes! Yep here in France! As you all rave about them, I got some, I think there were about 20 of them. I planted them in March and the size of the plants is astounding. They are over a metre tall! They are flowering but still very much in full foliage.
I had a firkle and one spud came out, I guess it was about 10cm long, still quite skinny and a little bit lumpy shaped :)  Also I was not sure if the skin was really ready. So I guess they need longer. But on average, what is their growing duration and how big are they when they are ready?
I sound impatient but as I am constantly worried about blight, I am trying to harvest quite generously rather than leave all spuds in the ground and take them out a little at a time.

[antipodes]

[Crystalmoon]

Hi there, Pink Fur Apple Potatoes are long & shaped like a sweet potato rather than normal spuds...they are very lumpy, bumpy (like artichokes) & the skin is reddish brown. They are pretty ugly as far as spuds go but they taste superb. I always leave the skin on when cooking as they would be too fiddly to peel. I just give them a good wash & sometimes a scrub with a nailbrush ;)
My plants have never grown as tall as yours but I've always been growing them in dry Summer conditions. I haven't planted any this year so I'm not sure if the height of yours is down to rain/watering etc.
I usually harvest mine one plant at a time but that's when it's a dry Summer. I would be tempted to get them all out as soon as possible this year due to the flooding etc xJane

[cornykev]

I haven't grown PFA for a few years but I remember the plants being very tall, and I didn't dig them up until Oct/Nov. :D

[saddad]

Seven foot of top growth  isn't unusual... they tend to flop and put out adventious roots and tubers...  :)

[green lily]

Leave them as long as you dare. Spray if necessary because they really wont be ready before September. They are a late main crop due even as late as October. I'm growing them from TPS this year and they are just forming buds  but not so big as ones grown from seed potatoes. Mine usually get to 4 feet which is a metre.
Stake them if you need to. I shall be spraying  tomorrow as we have a break in the weather here in the East before the rain hits us again next week.

[chriscross1966]

I've had them get to five feet, 1.5m before... they're big, floppy, unruly, have a nasty habit of setting tubers a long way from the middle of the plant, and the tubers themselves take the words "mis-shapen and knobbly" and run with them... on a big plant expect to find potato "hands", and leave them as late as you can... despite being a salad they're about a late a main as you will ever find, the only thng I know of that is later is COngo...

[RenishawPhil]

i grew these last year and they were small and uselss

never again

[antipodes]

Leave them so late, even if they were planted in March?
I have bordeauxed them twice, I will again, for now they look great (touch wood). I also have Vitelottes (purple spuds) and they too are absolutely huge! They too are listed as a late cropper so maybe the two will be ready at about the same time. They are flowering too.

I am not sure they wil grow more foliage as now they have flowered.

Thanks for the cooking tips Crystalmoon!  We don't mind potato skins so if they are that knobbly I shall leave the skins on to cook!

[chriscross1966]

Leave them so late, even if they were planted in March?
I have bordeauxed them twice, I will again, for now they look great (touch wood). I also have Vitelottes (purple spuds) and they too are absolutely huge! They too are listed as a late cropper so maybe the two will be ready at about the same time. They are flowering too.

I am not sure they wil grow more foliage as now they have flowered.

Thanks for the cooking tips Crystalmoon!  We don't mind potato skins so if they are that knobbly I shall leave the skins on to cook!

Vitelotte is almost certainly the same potato as COngo  (at least according to some potato sites) nad having grown them I cna't tell them apart.... it's easy to tell either of them from Negresse, Salad Blue and Russian Blue. Both them adn PFA are very old potato varieties, mid 19th century registrations adn PFA was noted for being "old fashioned" even then.... YEars of breeding went into trying to get potatoes rounder (you see the start of that with things like Fortyfold and Lumper) , and then to get them to be more centrally setting and with less wild topgrowth....but PFA is basically what potatoes were before all that, all the breeders had done by then was get the productivity and storage ability up, as the fields were hand-worked all the things that a machine worked crop needed were a bit irrelevant.....

[Paulines7]

i grew these last year and they were small and uselss

never again

I gave my friend some surplus ones last year.  When I asked her how they were doing, she replied that she has eaten them in July but then said that they were tasty,  small and there were not very many of them.  Mine stayed in until mid September and I had a huge crop. 

Perhaps yours were dug up too soon notts_phil.

[pigeonseed]

Yes I agree with the others - definitely late. You could get some late summer, and early Autumn, if you want to eat them then, but last year I left mine in the ground all winter, and dug them as I needed them and the ones I dug up in late winter were enormous!

I also found a load of them under a path:

have a nasty habit of setting tubers a long way from the middle of the plant

explains why! That makes sense from the plant's point of view, but inconvenient from ours.

In my experience, the foliage will just die off, before you get blight. But having said that, this is a very wet year, and none of my potato haulms have shown any sign of dying off yet. Which might make them prone to blight.  :-\

[antipodes]

Famous last words. I had to go cut off all the potato foliage this weekend as they were starting to get blight patches. Totally gutted. I will try leaving them in the ground another week or so but I don't think I could tempt leaving them longer than that.
Oh well there is always next year...  :'(

[KittyKatt]

I was late planting my PFA this year and they didnt go in until the end of April. Blight struck this weekend and the leaves and stems were badly affected. I decided to cut my losses and salvage what I could before it travelled down to the tubers. I've got quite a reasonable crop, with many tubers around 12 cm long. I havent cooked any yet, but they're looking good!
Kitty Katt