I live in central NM about 7300' elevation in the Manzano Mountains. This year is the first year to try potatoes and I've decided to start out with Red Norlands because of the reviews. I planted the last week of May, maybe about the 26th-27th (just after the last freeze). I started digging around 90 days (a few days ago) and only found small pearl sized potatoes about 1/4" and a few at about 1" max. About 80% of the plants look healthy with about 60% of them seem to have leaf damage from either a disease or insect but still seem Ok. A few are really terrible looking though. I've done absolutely NO insect spraying, just good watering once a week on the weekends and last weekend I did some spraying with plant food for the first time (not sure why I waited or if I should have done it at all). We have gotten almost no rain this year (a few good rain storms in early August but that's it), however its been the coolest year that I can remember and Ive been here since summer 1982. The soil seems to stay cool and kinda moist for the most part. I am wondering how much longer will I need to wait to harvest descent potatoes? I planted exactly as the instructions said that came with the seeds, however my rows are about 20 feet long and I have 4 of them with a 5th row about 6 feet long. Was hoping for at least 100 lbs of potatoes minimum (that was the plan anyway). I tilled about 12" down and added two big bags of garden soil (from Home Depot) per row as suggested in the instructions, lol (maybe I needed more or less or none?). I have added some of my old horse manure from back when I had horses in the 80's and 90's (very very little though). The manure is pretty much just soil now (after about 20 years of decomposing) but it seems to have helped with other veggies over the years so I added maybe a few wheel barrels spread across all 4 rows which was obviously less than suggested by the potato supplier. In my opinion the manure was negligible in the equation because it was so little amount.

Can someone who is familiar with Red Norlands tell me if I just need more time or did I plant to late in the season? Should I wait for the flowering (or is this a must?), if they ever do flower? Am I watering too little or too much? I seem to recall that I was to water once a week which I have pretty much done exactly that just before sun down to minimize evap.

Thanks for any help. Below are the url's to my potatoes plants taken an hour ago or so.
http://i.imgur.com/niwhl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/IJqQk.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/82ijU.jpg

I decided to experiment a bit with this one http://i.imgur.com/bIN7H.jpg

So, I put this large bucket around one of them and just kept tossing in some soil as she grew. She seems to be the healthiest so far but I have not dug down to see what she has done. All these potatoes are at about 95 days or so since planting. Every time I plant carrots they grow like crazy here so was thinking these potatoes would grow good as well. Was I wrong, or am I jumping the gun with that assumption? haha

Thanks again
Rod

Potatoes are unpredictable. My Russian Bananas died back early and I got lots of pea-sized tubers. I wish they'd gone on another month or so. On the other hand, my 90 day red potatoes still have a lot of green plants growing away at 5 months, when they ought to be dead and gone by now.

Manure isn't the best fertilizer for potatoes. They need more P and K. I like to use bone meal.

We have grown potatoes for 35+ years and 1 thing we have found out is that the size of the potatos harvested is determined by how much rain we get and somewhat by the variety.

We have never grown red norland but we do grow a couple of varieties The kenebecs grow slightly better in dry weather than the red chieftan but no potato grows big without rain. Watering does a bit but you need some good rains to get good potatoes.

2 years ago we had lots of rain and we harvested giant potatoes. Last year we had over a month of no rain and our potatoes were small. This year doesn't seem to be much better although we have had a few good rains lately so we can only hope.

We planted around the same time as you. We have been eating those tiny little things for a month now but we are leaving the rest until cooler weather. Potatoes won't keep if it is hot and as long as the tops are green they keep growing

I will forego doing any more digging for another two weeks or so. Maybe by mid September or early October they will be bigger. Thanks again for the sharing of information.

Rod

Yeah I do not live in ABQ, I live at 7300 feet elevation at the highest point on 337 (old South 14) just a few miles from the Apple Valley Ranch (about 14 miles south of I-40). I watch my outdoor temp sensors daily and my land has not gotten to 100, maybe mid 90's tops. Its usually at least 10-20 degrees cooler here than ABQ. And unfortunately, no I did not mulch and yes it was suggested, darn it. Live and learn, now I know next year to mulch. Thinking about Kennebecs now, lol after reading how much easier they are at growing in harsh dry climates. So potatoes are sensitive to the heat in the ground? Hmm, interesting, my carrots never get mulch and they grow like super carrots on steroids in my soil (guess they don't care about the heat). I wonder if its to late to throw on some mulch now at the base of the plants? Probably so, oh well there's always next year.

Thanks tishtoshnm for the important information. I will definitely mulch next year as I hill up the soil.

Rod