Potatoes with gouges and clefts in them?

[Daphne1411]

I have harvested all my potatoes and have had a huge crop, from tubs with bought compost and from the garden ground.
Potatoes from the containers are lovely, nice uniform shape of all sizes-no blemishes at all.
Potatoes from the ground have grown quite big but with what look like clefts (as though a fork has gouged a furrow in it), some look like they have 'scabby' bits on them. Almost all of the ground potatoes are affected.
All potatoes are from the same seed batch and have been irrigated regularly.
Any ideas what has happened and why please?

[PAULW]

Daphne the gouges are where the potato has grown again usually after a heavy rain after a sustained dry period, it would take many hours of you stood there with a hose pipe to keep your spuds well watered I am digging spuds at the moment after quite a lot of heavy rain and they are coming up in dust, the scabby bits is just that potato scab present in the ground can be controlled to a certain extent by altering the Ph spuds like acid ground.

[Hazel at the Hill]

....but they are still very edible, just more difficult to peel.

[ann-the-nan]

Potatoes with gouges and clefts in them

Daphne. I only grew 3 in the ground as an experiment, all the rest being in bags. The ground grown ones had a gouge or two. My next door neighbour put quite a lot in the ground and they were gouged. neither of us had a problem with the bag grown ones. He said that the gouges were slug trails where they had munched their way through the edge of the spud. Quite edible if you cut that piece away. p.s. He's a fanatic and waters his spuds on a regular basis.

[lottie dolly]

my spudz are the same,nice big ones,but a lot of them have slug damage,even found a few with rot in the centre,still got more to get up,i just sort them out,use up the not so good ones,and put the rest for storage,

[rustylady]

....but they are still very edible, just more difficult to peel.

I don't peel mine, just wash and boil or steam

[Daphne1411]

I did wonder whether it was something to do with slugs having a free meal or the watering. We did set up an irrigation system that waters everything for an hour every evening. I'm happy to eat the affected potatoes, though I would like some advice on how to store the rest.
I read; wash them, dry them in the sun, store in cardboard boxes or hessian bags in a cool dark place. How long will they keep for?

[Daphne1411]

re; gouged potatoes

I did wonder whether it was something to do with slugs having a free meal or the watering. We did set up an irrigation system that waters everything for an hour every evening. I'm happy to eat the affected potatoes, though I would like some advice on how to store the rest.
I read; wash them, dry them in the sun, store in cardboard boxes or hessian bags in a cool dark place. How long will they keep for?

[lottie dolly]

last year,i sorted them out first,the tiny ones are delish,the good ones i lay on an old sheet in the attic room,any clumps of soil just brush of with the fingers,i made some little sacks out of thin brown cotton canvas{from my fabric collection}with a draw string top,these were kept in the the attic room,in the dark,they kept great until the weather warmed up,and they started to sprout,i kept some for seed this year,am doing the same this year,

[Hazel at the Hill]

I read; wash them, dry them in the sun, store in cardboard boxes or hessian bags in a cool dark place. How long will they keep for?

I wouldn't wash them - I dig em up, let them dry on the soil surface for an hour to so to let them dry out and the skins set, then store in hessian sacks/paper sacks in the garage. Last year's spuds kept until about March this year.

[Daphne1411]

Oh dear, I've washed them all! The ground ones were really caked in mud. I sorted them into various sizes and they are all packed into shoe boxes and are at the moment stored in a cupboard under the stairs, my other half thinks the garage is too damp.
There is no way we are going to eat so many potatoes if they go bad quickly, so what is the best thing I can do to save them? I have lots of freezer space but I would really like to keep them as they are.

[Hazel at the Hill]

One of the chaps at the Hill was talking about storing spuds the other day - he said that they peeled and chipped their spuds, blanched them for 2 mins, dried them & open froze them with a drizzle of olive oil. Once frozen they bagged them & voila - frozen oven chips. You could make potato cakes

Mind you, the spuds you buy from the supermarket are often washed, aren't they - mind you, I'm not sure how long they would keep for.