potato planters - harvesting and dying plants

hi.

ive started harvesting my potato planters now. ive got one of charlotte potatoes and one of maris piper. im scared if i harvest them all now the potatoes will go off so im trying to leave them in as long as possible and pull out when i need them. i know eventually they will go off in the planter but has anyone got any other tips on how best to harvest?

also what do i do with the dying plant? just leave it until ive had all the potatoes??? do you only get one crop out of a plant? see im a novice at this lark lol :DOH:

 

slightly off topic but here is a differnt way of growing potatoes (sa this method used in south africa)

get a car tyre ... fill with soil and plant your potaoe plant

as the plant emerges through the soil, stack another tyre and fill with soil ...

continue to stack tyres (once saw 10 car tyres stacked ontop of each other)

not sure how effective it is, but the person who was doing this told me that he gets loads of potatoes from this method

looks a bit unsightly, but suppose one could paint the tyres

 

Yes you only get one crop this year.

its best to leave them in the soil until you are ready to eat them at this time of the year.
Even if the top dies off the taters will stay good if only slightly damp and covered so as not to go green.

 

Someone suggested to me keeping them in sand - will see if i can find the link.

 

Never heard of anything like that regarding spuds, especially earlies which you will probably eat in the next month or so. perhaps?

 

I tried that once and it was a real struggle to try and keep the soil moist inside the stack of tyres. Perhaps it would've been better if used somewhere where there's a mains water supply.

 

I always wondered when you have three plants to a bag, how you manage to harvest some without damaging the rest?