FAIRBANKS — This column is for the woman I overheard telling someone that her potatoes always should be harvested by the end of the fair. Well, actually it is for the woman who was receiving the advice. In case you don’t plan to read the rest of this piece, let me summarize in one simple sentence what the rest of the paragraphs will say: Your friend is wrong!

Potatoes have a lot more growing to do; if what I read is correct, the greatest rate of growth happens during August. Not above ground, but underground, where the tubers are gathering up sugars and starches for the winter. If you are itching to do something, then snip off the flowers and those seedpods that look like green cherry tomatoes. I have read, and Michele Hebert of Cooperative Extension agrees, that this will give you larger potatoes because the plant’s energy is not being diverted into pointless flowering. Some years I do this and some I don’t; it really depends on how much time I have.

Meanwhile, except for those wonderful baby new potatoes you sneak out of the sides of a few of your hills, the bulk of your potatoes should be left in the dirt until you hear the weatherman announcing a hard frost. If it is going to get to 30 or lower, cover the plants for the night and uncover them in the morning. You can buy fancy white row covers, but I have used large cardboard boxes, old blankets and sheets. All work well enough in terms of protecting the plants and keeping soil temperatures up; I have thrown sheets of plastic and even blue tarps over the potato patch.

Boxes, blankets or tarps should be removed every morning so that the plants have access to the sun. Sometimes the daytime temperatures of late August and early September still get pretty warm, so if the plastic is resting right on your plants pull it off so the air can circulate and the leaves are not touching the plastic. If you have the plastic draped over something like tall sticks so that the plants are not in contact with it, then leave it on. Those woven white row covers also allow light to get through, so if you put those on you can leave them until harvest time.

When the temperatures are threatening to hit the teens, pull your potatoes. If this happens on, say, a Tuesday night, it is tempting to leave them in the ground until you have more time on the weekend. Don’t. If they freeze, they will rot and soon. Use your hands, a pitchfork, or a garden fork to gently lift them up out of the dirt. I prefer using my hands, since no matter what fork I use, I end up spearing some of my precious spuds. Even if you do, you can pull them off the tines and wash them sufficiently to use them soon but they are useless for storage because the open wound will start to soften and rot. This year my potatoes are all in raised straw bale beds, so all I have to do is move aside a bale at a time for easy access.

After you dig them up, the potatoes you want to store need to be cured. Like so much else in gardening, the correct way to do this is up for debate. Some folks swear by simply brushing off the dirt, while others would shiver in revulsion at the thought of curing and storing unwashed potatoes. I always wash the potatoes I use from storage, whether I washed them before curing or not. Since I pay 10 cents a gallon to have my water delivered to a holding tank, I cannot stand the thought of the water waste involved in washing them twice.

After I dig the taters up, I brush off as much soil as I can. Then I lay them out in single layers on sheets of newspaper spread out on the floor of an unheated bedroom where it doesn’t get above about 60 degrees. Except for when I go in to turn over the potatoes so that all sides get exposure to air, the room is in darkness.

If you don’t have a dark area, then cover the potatoes with several sheets of newsprint or blankets. Allowing the potatoes to be exposed to the light will result in photosynthesis and greening. This leads to the formation of bitter tasting and toxic solanine. When you peel off the green skin, it will also take the solanine right below it, but why waste the peel if you don’t have to?

It is tempting to skip the curing step, especially if the only flat undisturbed space is your kitchen counter. However, curing helps the potatoes thicken their skins and allows surface cuts and bruises to heal. This will increase the length of time you can store the potatoes.

Once they have cured, your potatoes need to be moved to a cooler area, where it is above freezing but, ideally, below 40 degrees. Again, they need to be protected from light. Frankly, if you only harvest a grocery bag full of potatoes, and plan to use them in the next month or so, you can leave them in a warmer area. But if you want to serve your own potatoes at Thanksgiving, then find a location with the right temperature.

Linden Staciokas has gardened in the Interior for more than two decades. Send gardening questions to her at dorking@acsalaska.com