GardenPotato variety
Red Thumb Potato
✓ In your garden
Red Thumb is a fingerling potato, ready in about 90–120 days. These small, waxy tubers are best roasted whole or in salads. You grow potatoes from seed potatoes (not true seed): plant the pieces after frost, then hill soil up around the stems as they grow so the tubers stay covered.
“A waxy little fingerling for roasting whole.”
Growing basics — shared by every potato
Red Thumb grows like any other potato. The full picture — how deep to plant, spacing, feeding, pests, harvest — lives on the Potato page so it's maintained in one place.
- Sun
- Full Sun
- Spacing (in row)
- 10–12 in
- Row spacing
- 30–36 in
- Planting depth
- 3–6 in
- Soil pH
- 6–6.5
- Water
- Moderate
What is Red Thumb good for?
- Roasting wholeWaxy — crisps up and holds together. Great
- Boiling & saladsKeeps its shape, no falling apart. Great
- Fluffy mashToo waxy for a light mash — roast it instead. Skip it
From how it grows — kitchens vary.
—
Want the full 10/50/90% odds + nearest stations? Open the frost tool →When to plant Red Thumb in your zone
Zone 6bGreenhouse or cover on: your start slides ~4 weeks earlier and your harvest stretches ~3 weeks later (shown striped).
Planting seeds straight in the ground only works where the season's long and warm — most gardeners start seeds indoors or buy young plants, or you'd pick your first tomato right as frost hits.
Comfortable — first ripe fruit lands around late Jun, well before your typical frost (~late Oct).
- Plant seeds outside
- late Mar – early Apr
- Growing
- early Apr – late Jun
- Picking
- late Jun – early Aug
Typical dates for zone 6b — set your zone or ZIP above for yours.
What to plant near Red Thumb — and what to keep away
-
Cabbage familyTraditional
Old chart pairing.
-
TomatoPractical
Same family, same late blight. One sick bed infects the other.
The badge is the honesty. Trialed = a published field trial · Practical = a real mechanism · Traditional = companion-chart lore. These pairings hold for every potato.
Pairings compiled from West Virginia University Extension.
Growing Red Thumb — the things that trip people up
- Plant certified seed potatoes, not grocery ones or true seed — cut larger ones so each piece has an “eye,” and let the cuts dry a day before planting after your last frost.
- Hill soil (or straw) up around the stems as they grow. Tubers form near the surface, and any that see sunlight turn green and mildly toxic — keep them covered.
Red Thumb potato at a glance
| Type | Fingerling |
|---|---|
| Days to ripe | 65–75 days after you plant it outside |
| Color | Red |
Extra fields from seed-catalog listings and university growing guides. Days to ripe and disease resistance shift with your climate and seed source — double-check with your local extension office before you buy.
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Common questions about Red Thumb
How long does Red Thumb take to grow?
About 90–120 days. Harvest “new potatoes” early and small, or wait until the tops die back for full-size storage tubers.
Do I grow Red Thumb from seed?
No — potatoes grow from seed potatoes (small tubers with eyes), not true seed. Plant certified seed potatoes to avoid disease.
Why do I hill potatoes?
Tubers form near the surface. Mounding soil up around the stems gives them room and keeps them dark — exposed potatoes turn green and mildly toxic.
Browse more potato varieties →