Potatoes flattened by cat

[magicmarigold]

Hello, I've got a few bags of potatoes growing happily away along the back fence, good foliage on them, a few just about starting to flower and all was fine, until I glanced out of the window while washing up and one of my beloved potato bags has been flattened completely!
Now it could be the wind and rain of today, however I also have a lazy fat cat who tries to.jump higher than he can and often ends up sliding back down the fence and as it just one of the bags with either side being absolutely fine, I'm going to blame the cat.

Anyway my question is, what would you do? They are red Duke of York and were planted beginning of April, alot of the stalks have been snapped fairly low down, I've removed the completely broken bits and tried to prop the rest up as best as I can. There's no room in the top of the bag to earth them up more. Do you think there's any point keeping them in? I keep finding conflicting advice about whether I should prop them up, leave them to flop, or just dig them up.
Thank you!! Sorry for the essay it turned out longer than I expected.

[Chippy Minton]

Well, I think usual answer applies, if you've no other use for the bag you've nothing to lose. Leave them and see what happens, they may sprout from the bottom, the flattened non-damaged ones will probably spread and you'll end up with some form of crop and if it's bad you can blame the cat!

[nickdub]

I reckon its early enough in the season for them to grow on fine.

Knowing cats you might want to get spiky hedge trimmings like hawthorn and stick some in the top of all the bags - hopefully prevent it happening again.

[Penellype]

I've had potato stems snapped by animals (cat, dogs) before. I've left them where they are unless they are clearly dying, as if there is enough stem to transport water to the leaves they can carry on growing. You need to keep an eye out for mould on the wound, but I would give it a go and see what happens.

[magicmarigold]

Thanks everyone, I guess all I can really do is wait, if they are looking obviously dead in a week or so I'll pull them and use the space for something else.

I can't even be annoyed at my cat, hes a giant half blind softy who doesn't normally leave our garden, hopefully it's put him off jumping for a while!

[chillithyme]

aww your cat sounds like a sweetly, bless him.
Yes leave your potatoes, they should be ok, this has happened to my potatoes in bags before,it's a cat motorway thought my garden, I don't mind as I'd rather they went through the back than the road, even if it means sacrificing the speed of potatoe growth.Surely but slowly, potatoes will recover

[chillithyme]

like you say, at worse, you can always replace them if they don't do good

[Jungle Jane]

Ive had stems broken in the wind,each seed potato has a few stems per potato if two are damaged,the remaining one stem would produce bigger potatoes maybe,like rubbing off chits? Or new stems will just grow from where they’re not broken underground,,potatoes don’t give up that easily,they’ll still be growing there next year.

[chillithyme]

apparently large potatoes are grown by removing all stems except for one per seed potatoe to produce larger potatoes, as the energy goes to one stem only and therefore produces larger potatoes,depending on the variety the larger the potatoe I think e.g maincrop

[penny]

Today a cat got in my greenhouse, saw me and tried to climb the netting supporting my yard long beans and cucumber plants. He got entangled and was very cross so I had to risk his claws in order to free him, I now need new plants, I suppose it will teach me to leave the door open! Cats are great.