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can i eat last years crop of potatoes

Can anyone please help me. Can i eat last years potatoes . I have taken over an allotment and loads of potatoes came up so i have picked them but i have been told that you should not eat them ? they look really healthy  to me.

many thanks

sherry.

Posts

  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,384

    Hi Sherry,  If you mean there were potatoes left in the plot and these have now grown and produced full size plants, each old parent (aka seed) potato will have developed a new crop of young potatoes by now which are fine to eat.  The parent potato will normally have rotted away at this time of the year - those are the ones (one per plant) to avoid.

    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,445

    People get muddled, they don't understand what they're told and pass it on wrongly. They're just potatoes, volunteers. 

    the recommendation is that you get  spuds out and don't let them regrow another year to avoid passing on any diseases that might be around. Mostly you'd get away with it and you have. Eat and enjoy



    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • FarmergeddunFarmergeddun Posts: 229

    Hi Sherry,

    The volunteers nutcutlet is referring to are often tiny (pea sized or smaller) potatoes that are left in the ground.  Diseases and pests such as blight use these volunteers to overwinter (blight cannot survive without a living host).  The idea is that if you take away their food you will have less problems with them.  

    I have had volunteers growing over my plot this year as there were too many volunteers to remove (due to the bad weather last year the crop was really poor).  Each time I've seen a potato I've pulled it up.  This year I've grown my potatoes in large pots and it is a LOT easier to remove all of the volunteers when it comes to harvest.

    You can also get new growth if you let the berries of some varieties (Vanessa, Cara, Desiree, Maris Piper, Maris Peer, Pentland Ivory) fall as they can contain over 200 seeds each and can survive in soil for up to 10 years.

  • Just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone for your feed back about the potatoes.

    aIso i was not 100%sure about the little green things that look a bit like apples, but now i know what they are.

    thanks again

    sherry

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