Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Allotment Jack on May 19, 2010, 13:24
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Hi
I have noticed a few potato plants coming up from the bed i grew them in last year.
I understand i should rotate and plant elsewhere but will these plants be ok or should i relocate or distroy them to avoid desease?
Hope someone can help?
Thanks Ricky.
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They are called volunteers.
The come up from tiny potatoes that you missed last year.
Either dig them out or just hoe them off.
I wouldnt let them grow as they could have diseases from overwintering and they will spoil your crop rotation :)
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I have some growing up between the peas! :ohmy:
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::)
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I've got them growing in my bean trench - obviously from the compost heap stuff I piled in the bottom. ::)
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Got these 2 years ago after digging up the mangetout.
(http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c182/G4IAR/DSCF1262.jpg)
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Got these 2 years ago after digging up the mangetout.
(http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c182/G4IAR/DSCF1262.jpg)
Mutant zombie potatoes!
I'd be less worried about crop rotation and more worried that they'll be after my brains...
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They are Pink Fir Apple spuds and should look like that!
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Them's funny mangetout Dave ::) :lol:
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They're the nitrogen fixing nodules. :tongue2:
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They are Pink Fir Apple spuds and should look like that!
Really?
Funny, everything I grow kind of looks like that...
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There's hours of fun with pink fir apples spuds when you get the innocents who have never seen them!!!
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I've rotated my spuds since I got my allotment three years ago and now the volunteers are likely to come up anywhere. Jerusalem artichokes are even worse - luckily I planted them in one spot. I thought I had dug up every last tuber but there is a flipping forest of 'em coming up. And then there is that pesky mole >:(
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I let mine grow on as I find they give me a better crop than freshly sown seed potatoes do. Of course, they sprout in the worst places like in the middle of the leek bed or such, but I let them grow and I'm rewarded. Must say, I've never had anything as mutant as DD's alien potatoes :lol:
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I agree with Trillium, my volunteer potatoes last year were better than the ones I planted. ::)
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I was about to ask this question today. I've seen today people leaving the volunteers to grow.
are they seriously bad or just dont worry about them at all?
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In my experience definately NOT seriously bad at all Prakash.
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If you leave them to grow they may be a source of blight for the proper crops that you and your neighbours are trying to grow.
Hoe them or dig them out, however tempting a bonus crop is. Also be on the lookout for potatoes regrowing from compost heaps, your or your neighbours, that might also cause blight later on.
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Potatoes which carried blight the previous year have long turned to mush and it's highly unlikely volunteers are carrying it. If anything, they're probably more resistant. It's something you need to consider with some caution whether or not to let them grow but panic isn't needed.
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Leaving mine to grow :)
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I agree with Salmo in as far as these volunteers can carry blight. You only have to look at the blight outbreaks to see how often this happens.
Problem is, removing them would often destroy what you're trying to grow. In my case the mangetout would have been sacrificial.
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I personally get rig of them,
You are ruining your crop rotation, if you leave them to grow you might as well not bother with it.
What is the point in buying virus free spuds if your going to let something grow that may have a virus after the winter, and what about build up of pests.
This advice seems to go against all the other advice given :nowink:
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Isn't it strange,
We all go to great lengths earthing up and fleecing our current seaons crop of potatoes in an attemt to protect them from the frosts and still the foliage gets nipped at yet the foliage of previous years volunteer potatoes always seems to grow lush and green without any protection ???
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I have planted some of those mutant spuds for the first time this year - so I now know what to expect - thanks for the photo DD.
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Isn't it strange,
We all go to great lengths earthing up and fleecing our current seaons crop of potatoes in an attemt to protect them from the frosts and still the foliage gets nipped at yet the foliage of previous years volunteer potatoes always seems to grow lush and green without any protection ???
All my spuds planted this year have died with frost, the volunteers are doing great with no damage at all. Survival of the fittest and all that? Would that go for viruses as well? I will have to leave mine in with the caullis as its all i have left >:(
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I have some volunteers too - coming up in my over-wintering bed of garlic and onions - not very convenient. I'm hoeing them off as they appear.
I noticed that the volunteers appeared above the surface much later than all my other spuds planted this year. Perhaps that explains why they're less likely to be frost damaged (although thankfully we've not had any late frosts down here - yet).
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Each year I get volunteer spuds and always hoe them off because I don't want them spoiling what I am growing.
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I've got 'volunteers' in my turnip bed and growing in my compost bin from where I tipped the compost from the potato tubs I used last year....soooo annoying! >:(
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I agree with Trillium, my volunteer potatoes last year were better than the ones I planted. ::)
I've been pulling the shoots whenever I see them. I think I'll let them grow now. There is a particularly persistent lot in the carrot bed!
Just a thought: I only got my plot last year so the pots I put in were planted in August for Christmas Dinner. I am sure they were Maris Peer. So if these volunteers have been in the ground since August, will they be harvestable before the April-planted first earlies?