How dead do potatoes need to be before you can dig them and still keep? Mine are around 3/4 dead now, but the voles have found them. Chewing the heck out of them. I would like to dig them, but I want them to keep too.

Dig them and set them in the sun for the day. Knock the dirt off them and put them in your shop to dry out some more and allow the bad ones to show themselves. I do this for about a week. Then put them in milk crates and put them in a cool. dry, dark place such as your basement or cellar. We raise three different types of potatoes and a good kennebec or other long season white is the only one I have found to winter well. You could always can the smaller ones as well in a pressure canner. LLL

I recall reading somewhere that commercial spuds get sprayed down to speed the dying down off the tops before harvest. If this true then I imagine digging early won't effect storage. I may be wrong though.

snooze you loose
dig now especially if the voles are going for them
there is enough starch that the voles can find them so good enough for storage
Give the voles some Jimmy Carter food



on a mouse trap

3/4 dead will work fine.

Dig them. Don’t wash them for a week.

well, I went through and dug the ones that we're the most dead. Not as much vole damage as I thought there would be, so far. I did dig into a vole nest. They wasn't so lucky. Taters are almost to big. Alot of pound, pound and a half ones. I should have plenty for winter.

Yes this is true
Then they mow the top
They have been harvesting for a couple of weeks here

There are two very important reasons why potato vines are spayed to die off. The first as stated is to set up a very uniform and fast maturity and harvest time which in most very large operations is monitored for temperature daily and harvested when temps fall below the desired temp. Also why many are harvested at night or very early in the AM before the ground warms up again. The 2nd reason is to translocate the sugars from the vines into the potatoes to help add flavor and formulate the desired starch levels and also to help develop a mature or tougher skin so that the potatoes are not as easily bruised in harvest and storage. A lot depends upon the markets also. The largest grower in WI has a contract with a very large potato chip company so their potatoes need to be of a very certain size and the smaller and larger ones are sorted for other markets.

Bryce