[Moggie]

Yikes - Help please. I am the victim of my own laziness (or bad eye-sight) - Obviously not cleared the spuds well enough last year and now got three lovely spuds coming up right in the middle of my onions. Not been up the lottie for 3 weeks due to other stuff happening, so imagine the horror approx 12 inches tall already (in old money)!
Any advice please - Should I just let them do their thing? Don't want to disturb the onions too much. NB - Have plenty of spuds in the spud-bed, so that's not an issue.
Thanks

[sunshineband]

IMHO leave them alone unless they are going to shade the onions too much  and enjoy the extras 

[Salmo]

Take it out before it shades the onions. Just keep hoeing it off if digging up will disturb the onions. The likelyhood is that it has come from a tiny potato and will not produce much.

It could also be a source of blight or virus and infect your potato crop.

[Trillium]

On the contrary, I find that leftover spuds from previous years give me the best harvest so I always leave them as does my mother. It's mostly a matter of just how large they'll grow on you and whether or not they shade the onions too much. Make that decision later. For now it's not a problem.

[sunshineband]

I'm with Trillium on this one -- my Dad always gets a few 'volunteers' from his compost bin and they are good 

[woodburner]

The boys pulled up one from my compost heap where it couldn't have done any harm, but I have a load in my onions too! 

[Kristen]

My personal view is that you should remove it. If you don't then any Potato disease this year will be in both the Potato bed and the Onion bed, potentially rendering both of them useless for spuds for several years, rather than just the Potato bed (and hopefully your crop rotation won't have Potatoes there again for three or four years anyway, hence solving the problem).

Now, if you don't get any Potato disease this year  , then leaving the Volunteers will give you some extra spuds (provided they don't swamp the other crops of course!)

[hamstergbert]

Well paint me pink and call me Percival!  Exactly what I am seeing in my onion bed.  Last year grew medium-early spuds on that bed and all went splendidly until in the space of a weekend all the foliage disappeared.   Dug up as required and got plenty of (very tasty) medium/small tubers.  Clearly missed some, or the marble sized ones as in among the onions are three or four potato plants, which being a lazy soul I have decided to leave on the basis that the stunting of a handful of my onions should be more than offset by the bonus spuds (particularly since demoralisation on last year's experience means they are the only spuds growing this year in my garden - not due lottie allocation until I am 130 years old.)

But, to get to the point - is this something that onion beds are particularly vulverable to, and if so...... anyone suggest why this should be?

[Yorkie]

I don't think onion beds are particularly vulnerable, I have a spud coming up in the peas - it's just that spuds were grown there the previous year (also have a couple coming up in the bed where they were grown 2 years ago  :happy: )

Out with the hoe ...

[SnooziSuzi]

On this subject then;  I just use my regular fork when digging up the spuds and too have missed some around the plot and these volunteers are popping up in a few unlikely places. 

Personally I hoe/pull them up as I don't want them there this year, but as a preventative measure does anyone think it would be worthwhile buying a 'potato fork' with tines that are closer together to prevent the spuds from falling back into the soil?

[Trillium]

Part of the joy of gardening is find little surprises like the occasional spud in the onion patch. Can't understand why folk are so gung ho to root them out. If anything, the spuds are safer in the onion bed than in a 'proper' row of spuds. Only actual onion disease is onion rot, which exists in the UK, but isn't something that passes to spuds nor visaversa (blight).

[sunshineband]

LIke the surprise radishes we have where the five year olds got the seeds stuck on their sweaty little palms and the 'dusted' them off as they walked through the plot to the gate ----- sure was a surprise, but a good one 

[Yorkie]

I root mine out as they're in the way and will compete for nutrients etc - if I'd had blight last year I'd also be concerned, but the spuds are definitely edible if you let them grow 

[sunshineband]

Oh yes, they sure are edible Yumyum is all I can say 

[Kristen]

Remind me of the old adage: "A weed is a plant in the wrong place"