[MajorTom]

I wonder if anyone can help. I just started gardening this year. The garden hadn't been used for years, if ever - full of stones, plastic rubbish, deep roots etc. Gave it a dig over in  the Spring and planted some potatoes with Organic Potato fertiliser.  The stalks grew to about 3 feet and flopped over at the first hint of wind. When I harvested, the tubers looked and tasted OK, but there was very few of them. Putting this down to poor soil condition I dug down to about 3 feet in a different plot, seived out most of the stones, plastic, tree roots etc, and added a couple of bags of farmyard manure, Potash, and Growmore fertiliser. I planted a different batch of potatoes about 6 weeks ago. Once again the stalks are about 3 foot high, and the wind we have had in London in the last couple of days has flattened them. The stalks and leaves look perfectly healthy - just leggy and weak. I grew up on a farm, and I don't remember the potato crops suffering from wind damage. Anybody got any idea what the problem might be?

[mumofstig]

Did you earth up the potato haulms as they grew, this usually gives them some support, but the winds were gale force yesterday 

[JayG]

You don't seem to have done much wrong but haven't mentioned earthing them up (this is really done to protect from early frosts and prevent greening of the tubers but does also decrease the effective height of the foliage and provides better anchorage.)

Any chance of a picture (hard to judge just from a description.)

(Welcome to the forums by the way.) 

[Goosegirl]

Earthig up definitely, perhaps too much nitrogen in the soil?

[sunshineband]

If it is any consolation, our maincrops blew over a few weeks back.

The ends of the stems started turning up towards the light and grew away still, albeit at a funny angle.

Potatoes harvested this week were huge, so .....

.... hope your are too 

[Salmo]

Except for a few short topped varieties most potatoes fall over. If there are several rows, or a field full you do not notice.

[MajorTom]

Thanks for the replies. At least I don't appear to have made any glaringly obvious mistakes. I did earth up, though it could be argued that it wasn't high enough. The tip about high Nitrogen might be worth looking into (thanks Goosegirl), as even my weeds seem to be lanky frail affairs. Sorry JayG, I have yet to enter the 21st century by buying a picture phone.