Potatoes

[peeejaay]

Hi All,
I posted a thread a few months ago about leaving potatoes in the ground over winter but was advised not to in case of keel slug damage. Well I fully intended to lift all the spuds but due to work and family commitments and also sheer laziness (!) I still havent lifted them to store, instead digging up a couple of plants as and when needed. Surprisingly, there is less slug damage than on last years crop (although I'm not attributing that to leaving them in the ground, there must be some other factor to account for this) and the crop is fantastic! The tubers are much larger and far more numerous than in previous years so I will continue to harvest them this way and see how long I can get good results for (guessing really hard frosts may affect them somewhat) I just have one query, most of the spuds have very pronounced netting on the skin, can anyone tell me what might have caused this and is there anything I can do to reduce it next year? Thanks in anticipation. PJ

[Geordie]

The rough, netted skin on your potato may be because it has been grown in a sandy soil and there is not enough rain when it is growing. This makes the soil act like sandpaper against the skin, causing it to be rough when harvested.

[Snadger]

Hi All,
I posted a thread a few months ago about leaving potatoes in the ground over winter but was advised not to in case of keel slug damage. Well I fully intended to lift all the spuds but due to work and family commitments and also sheer laziness (!) I still havent lifted them to store, instead digging up a couple of plants as and when needed. Surprisingly, there is less slug damage than on last years crop (although I'm not attributing that to leaving them in the ground, there must be some other factor to account for this) and the crop is fantastic! The tubers are much larger and far more numerous than in previous years so I will continue to harvest them this way and see how long I can get good results for (guessing really hard frosts may affect them somewhat) I just have one query, most of the spuds have very pronounced netting on the skin, can anyone tell me what might have caused this and is there anything I can do to reduce it next year? Thanks in anticipation. PJ

I had netting on some of my spuds and these were in dry dusty soil areas
.Keel slugs don't like dry dusty soil so this may account for the lack of them?
Plenty of organic matter dug into the soil would surely be helpful!