Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi there

Well, I was excited to lift our first ever potatoes on Sunday (Winston), only to be horrified by the slugs holes and a couple of wireworms wriggling about.
We were able to keep 60% which hadn't been touched but the rest just got thrown away. Most of the potatoes were fab jacket potato or wedges size & some were very tiny! We did try mashing them last night but soon found out they are not for mashing.

Can I ask, do you think it is worth leaving the rest in the ground (facing further attack) or lifting them all now and put them in storage sacks.

We have the rest of the Winston's, Estima's, Jersey Royals and the King Edward (which our the main crop and need to be kept in)

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated

Welcome to organic growing! It's inevitbale that your veg will be attacked. Just cut out the manky bits, the rest taste fine. Sounds like you have farily big potatos so they are ready to lift I think.

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Mark

Vegetable Kingdom blog

Thanks for your reply!

I was wondering if we should lift the winstons now and keep them in storage

Also, I thought that Winston's were going to be new potatoes...

To be honest, we made wedges from them last night and I thought they were quite watery.

If you need the space then lift, they are an early variety but they can also be left in the ground and used as bakers, so up to you. For cooking, it seems they are best suited for baking, roasting and boiling.

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Mark

Vegetable Kingdom blog

... and there was me thinking that i was going to take them, clean them & boil with some mint and cover with butter and eat.

I planted them on April 19 (very well chitted) and thought I was lifting them too early. I was hoping for some lovely small new potatoes

I also have some estimas & jersey royal - do you think I should check them too? they went in May 4th...

I'm not sure why you can't do that anyway. You just have some big ones mixed in with the smaller ones.

The word seems to be "furtle", which means dig down with your hands carefully to see what is there.

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Mark

Vegetable Kingdom blog

The word seems to be "furtle", which means dig down with your hands carefully to see what is there.[/quote]

OK, thanks for the advice!

If you are troubled with wireworm or slugs, I would get them out of the ground and put the clean ones in a temorary 'clamp'. That way you will be able to take as many as you need, seal the clamp again, and each time you take a boiling you shouldn't lose that 'fresh dug' taste!

If left in the soil the usable percentage will go down each day.

You still need to eat them fairly quickly as they won't store for very long!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

OK, thanks for the advice. I think I will give the clamp a go!

There's good advice here about Wireworm: Wireworm

Also, have you been watering your spuds a lot? It would explain the proliferation of slugs, and the watery texture.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

Thanks Two_Sheds.. we weren't sure what varieties to grow and just picked a few at random. I am not sure whether we will grow them again next year.

Do you think that we have left them in too long is some of them a huge?

I also have some estimas and jersey royals that went in 2 weeks after these.. I probably need to have a little look and see how they are doing.

Im just starting to harvest my first earlies (maris bard) and some of them are also big. Some have got little holes in them which im asuming is from wireworm (?) but then i have found some little orange long things in them - are these millipedes? and are they a problem? (also found them in my carrots....)