[CarlC]

Dops naybody know when you have to harvest spuds? because we have some in the garden and they`re starting to flower and i haven`t a clue when to harvets them, some sites say before they flower others say wait till the plant has died down.

Does anybody know?

Cheers

Carl.

[Trillium]

Starting to flower is the sign that the actual spuds are now forming below and growing. You definitely must leave the plants until they start to die off, the sign that they've finished growing this year. The foliage (aka halum) doesn't have to be totally dead before you dig, but should be halfway dead or more before digging.

Once you dig the spuds out, leave them on the dry ground for about an hour or 2 to dry off before packing up. Don't leave them any longer as light will start making them green (which is toxic).  The drying off period assures better storage.

[CarlC]

ok m8 thnx

[garddwr]

I've already harvested minde .

Can you compost the plant its self (haulm) ?

[Trillium]

As long as there was no blight, you can compost the halums. Chopping it up a bit first helps it compost down faster. Same with large plants like toms and vining plants.

[garddwr]

thanks I'll try that Trillium

[muntjac]

give them a liquid manure feedor use  6 x chicken concentrated manure is fantastic stuff  chuck it on dry a handfull to a plant now for betterer spuds and again in a couple weeks for a wet feed  dont bother lifting until the haulms start to die down ( looking less vigourous ) and then lift em , wash em off under a hose pipe n allow to dry naturally sort em out for marked and scarred ones bag the chipped or bad marked ones sweperate from the good ones as these wil usually form a mould over the damage .  store the good ones and eat the marked up as you want .tie the bag necks up to stop light getting at em , you should be eating em at Christmas still oe even after if ya have enough we have about 8 sacks full i think ( aggy did the maths she's better at it than me   ) you can also sort out ya big jacket spuds out at the same time as ya salad weeniers