"Bob Hobden" wrote in message
...

"Kase" wrote...
I may have this years seed potatoes in the garage waiting to be chitted,
but the volunteers from last year are already well under way. I've dug
over last years potato patch today and found a lot of very edible left
overs (quite big lates and second earlies - about 15 kilos in total and
I've still got another 1/4 of the plot to go). But there were quite a few
potatoes that had decided to start growning, and had about 3 inches of
root and 1 inch of stalk. I had half expected them to be totally dead
thanks to this years hard frosts up here in South Manchester, but I would
say that the cold has improved the lates in flavour by quite a lot. This
is the second year that I've stored the potatoes in the ground that they
grew in, and it is two successes in a row - who needs to learn how to
build a clamp ;-)


Don't you have slugs in Manchester? We have to get our spuds up before we
lose the lot.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden


For me it is a dilemma of 'the least losses'. I grew British Queen as the
second early and it succumbed to blight within about 5 nanoseconds of
producing a crop, but it was a lovely crop of extremely white tubers with no
flaws and even right through to yesterday (21 Feb) the slugs have not
touched it in the ground.

The maincrop was Picasso, which produced a huge crop but tasted vile (like
blight would taste if you could get past the smell!) when I harvested the
first lot, so I left them in the ground meaning to clear them into the
'green' bin for the council to sell to apartment dwellers. Yesterday as I
was finally clearing them I noticed that 2/3 of the crop were still 'clean'
although the rest were like sardine tins for slugs - black slugs, packed
densely inside the tubers. So I tasted a couple of the clean ones and they
were lovely and starchy, with a King Edward flavour - result!

The issue about 'the least losses' is that in the previous 3 years to the 2
where I have left the tubers in the ground, the stored potatoes have rotted
in the middle starting after two weeks and with none left after four weeks.
That doesn't even get me to Christmas! So leaving them in the ground, whilst
unfortunately leaving something for the slugs, provides for me through most
of the winter

Kase