Can someone help me with my potatoes?

[genipuss]

Its my first time!!
I used some of potatoes that I had left to long and they had sprouted, started growing them about a month a go in large pots,moved them outdoors in their pots at the beginning of april and they looked great! Bank holiday I planted them out, did everything my gardenning book told me to. Next day some of the leaves had gone black, a week later alot of the leaves and some stems have gone yellow brown and curly but the plants seen to be growing still???
Help x

[Annpan]

Hello,


Sounds like a touch of frost? They should recover if the tuber itself was not frozen.

Worth leaving them anyway. and see what happens.

HTH

[Green Aura]

I wouldn't worry too much about them. If they're still growing then they're probably OK.

They've probably just had a bit of a shock to their system. You don't usually start spuds off in pots indoors - just stick them in where you want them to grow.

Make sure they don't dry out and earth them up regularly until they look like they're getting ready to flower and you should get plenty of spuds.

By the way, you could have left them in the pots if they're large enough - keeps them contained and they don't sprout all over your garden next year.

[bodrighy]

We do this with sprouting spuds but in bin bags. We do it straight outdoors though and just keep earthing up. Easy to just tip the bag out when harvesting. Don't get a huge crop but it's free and we get a good few meals from what would otherwise simply end up in the compost. (Have also accidently got crops of potatos and tomatos from the compost bin before now as well. Experimented with potato peelings one year (not deliberately just used unrotted compost in the bottom of a trench) and got some from them as well. ) The black leaves sound like frost bite. Enen down here in Cornwall we have had frosts up to a week ago whereas we don't normally get more than a couple a year.

Pete

[genipuss]

Thanks you guys I have left them a couple of days and they do seem to be getting better.
Just one question, what do you mean by Earthing Up? sorry just very new at potatoes x

[Annpan]

As potatoes grow, most people put more earth/ soil/ compost around the stem. Some potatoes will be forming near to the surface and the earthing up process stops them from going green (thus poisonous) I think that also, the stem that you cover becomes root, thus producing more potaotes.

No need to appologise

There are a few other veg that can benefit from earthing up namely celery but I have read of parsnips and leeks being earthed up.

[Odsox]

Just a quick observation, what everybody else said plus .... yellow potato leaves are just a sign that the temperature is lower than they would like.
Nothing to worry about as they will green up as the weather gets warmer.
Tomatoes are different by the way, their leaves go bluey purple when they're too cold, even though they are the same family as potatoes.

[genipuss]

Thanks guys, they are starting to pep up actually x

[mrsflibble]

mine are in a broken woven plastic bag for life, i punched a few holes in the bottom, lined with sand, coarse gravel and then broken pots before topping with a fe inches of compost, a fw potatoes and then more compost. I have to container garden, my back yard is paved. I have the luck of living in a microcosm of wierd weather, i live in a sort of quad of terraced houses so although our garden isn't always incredibly light, it's warm.

glad to hear yours are perking up!