potatoes

I find they always do so much better in open soil.
We get a few lost to damage but not enough to put me off.
We pellet the trenches for slugs and have done great this year, cant wait for next year already

Beautifully clean spuds from the crops I have grown in bags ...

... but much smaller yield than in the ground

I grew in bags this year as I had no option to put them in the ground.  I found that earlies did well in individual pots and were easy to crop.  However I found that mains (which I did 4 in a large sack) yielded at about 50% of what they did in the ground in previous years.  I still found this to be worth while but just not a fruitful.  I will be repeating again next year as it's still good fun.

Hannah

I have bought some 30 Litre Buckets and next year I'm trying at least one beds worth in a 50:50 mixture of soil and compost. Did very Early's this year in the greenhouse in flower buckets in 100% compost.

Grow slug resistant varieties

JBA have a list

http://www.jbaseedpotatoes.co.uk/buy-seed-potatoes/slug-resistant-seed-potatoes

Mine are on the list but they still have the suck marks on them where the little blighters have had a go....

And why is it that you don't find the slugs in the ground when you dig them up?

Which begs the question - would other varieties get munched even more? - 'cause they are slug-resistant, not slug-proof.

But that still does not answer the question, why don't you find slug in the ground when you dig the potatoes up

I certainly did.  They are small keel slugs that live underground though, not the above ground large types.   I even had one hanging out of a slug hole in one of my Picasso potatoes when I dug it up this time.  Yuk!

I planted Cara (on the slug resistant list) and Picasso (not on the list) in two halves of the same bed this year.  This was a useful controlled experiment as I unfortunately forgot to put slug pellets in the ground at planting time.  I have to report that there was no difference between either variety.  Both were well eaten by slugs.   

I think if I am going to grow maincrop in open ground, slug pellets it will have to be.