Rotten Taters

[OverWyreGrower]

We've returned from a weeks holiday and harvested about 20 red onions and enough carrots to make our entire village see in the dark!!

However, my potatoes that were still in the ground (foliage cut off and earth mounded over) have mostly rotted

I suspect this is partially from the torrential rain and standing water from the last week or so.

Since I plan to manure the bed and cover in cardboard and plastic, do I have to dig the rotten potatoes up and discard, or can they just be left in the ground??

(They look like normal spuds, but are squishy with foamy white insides and a distinctly rotten-earthy-manurey smell)

[daylily]

More likely from blight, than from wet.

If you don't fancy digging them up... well, you should really, something tells me, then leave the area free from potatoes and tomatoes for at least 4 years.

Might be a good idea , in case you are doing this again, not to disturb the soil at all after the foliage is cut.

[Demeter]

I thoug blight was black or brown and mushy rather than white?

Lunda66 had something like this not long ago. I think the general consensus was that they had just rotted because of the weather.

If they were attacked by slugs that would encourage them to rot as well.

[daylily]

Blight is a dry, brownish rot, but is rarely seen like that as soon other infections get in.

Those few weeks are no time to rot a potato tuber just because it's wet in my opinion, since they can be over-wintered in the ground. They need to be diseased with something. I know, wet potentially brings a lot of disease. I regress, I think they probably had blight. I know, I can't prove it.

[OverWyreGrower]

Once I'd cut the foliage off, the soil wasn't disturbed until today....

Well, my allotment beds have been under 3 inches of standing water for over a week, and I was sinking into the soil as I dug. When I lifted the soil and had made a hole, water just seeped into it from the bottom (we're right on the water table here, and 2ft down is sand)....

The reason I ask about digging them up is that they're pretty hard to actually get hold of without squishing in your hand, under no pressure at all

[SarzWix]

I think you'll have to leave them in then, as it's going to be fairly impossible to get them out Feel for you over the lost crop, we lost some of ours, but were quite lucky to save some too.
You'll have to leave as long a gap as possible before you put anything potato related in there, because you don't know what has caused the rotting. Sounds like you need to build the height of the beds up a lot to prevent waterlogging, is there any chance of getting in a load of compost/topsoil over winter?

[lynda66]

i had the same problem with 2 of the plants, but the others, though very small were all fine,despite the stems going manky and covered with fruit flies .... maybe i just got them up in time, they were in the same bed though