Do you grow potatoes? I live in southern NE and for the first time

[Paper Roses]

planted potatoes. In fact, both my neighbor and I did so.
It seems a little early but my potatoes and his are starting to pop out of the ground. The leaves are turning yellow.
It seems a little early for this to happen. Does this mean they are ready to did up?
I Googled and did not seem to find an answer to this question.

Should I get out there with a shovel?

[Kolesar]

1. Shovel some soil onto the exposed potatoes

Sun will turn them green, forming "solanum", a compound that will make diners sick.

You don't have to rush to dig the potatoes out. However, your plants may be played out already. I have seen potato plants die off in August before.

[Denninmi]

2. Wait until the leaves are mostly brown.

They really keep best if the tops are pretty dead. At this point, it won't take very long, a few more weeks at most. The only reason to dig them earlier is if something is threatening them -- bad weather, insects, animals.

I found this image online -- this is what the tops should look like at optimal harvest stage (Note, the plants in the image have pest problems, I'm just posting to show how "dead" the tops should look at the best time to dig them).


http://www.google.com/imgres?q=senescent+potato+plant+images&hl=en&biw=1152&bih=773&tbm=isch&tbnid=EEStYcRnN-VPpM:&imgrefurl=http://bayer.warinteractive.com/pestspotter_new.aspx%253Ffn%253Ddetails%2526con%253D2111%2526pestId%253D748&docid=eMgA3banTV6C7M&w=189&h=252&ei=ErJCTrz4POrpsQLXhOzbCQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=426&page=4&tbnh=153&tbnw=124&start=69&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:69&tx=83&ty=102

[Raven]

3. I'm in southern NH and just picked my first 2 plants- red bliss.

It seemed a little early to me too but the foliage had died so I dug. Got about 2 dozen beautiful potatoes. I have about 12 more plants of other varieties that are not ready to dig yet. You can mound up your plants to protect them and just leave them in the ground for awhile until the foliage is dead.

[TygrBright]

4. Google "hilling up"... sounds like it's time. n/t