Too many volunteers!

[caroline7758]

I can't believe how many baby potatoes I have dug up this year, left over from last year. Is there anything I can do this year, apart from digging like mad, to make sure there are none left next year, as it surely defeats the object of rotation if they are still coming up when I'm planting the next crop?

[caroline7758]

[PurpleHeather]

no

It is just one of those things you have to put up with

[Robert_Brenchley]

Lift them as you see them, or if you can't, then keep pulling them out till they give up.

[ceres]

2 years ago in a moment of madness, I dug a big bean trench - 18" deep (hit the river gravel there) and 3 feet wide.  In the bottom, along with all the usual stuff went a few old potatoes from the kitchen.  There is now another 6" of manure and compost on top in a raised bed, but the d@mned potatoes keep coming up, from 2 foot down!  I don't think I'll ever get rid of them.

[Robert_Brenchley]

If you don't pull them constantly, they'll form new tubers a couple of inches down and come up from those.

[ceres]

I'm trying to pull them out as soon as they come up.  Sometimes when the ground is soft, I can pull 12" of straight white shoot.  I think I'll have to bite the bullet at the end of this season and dig them out properly.

[tonybloke]

If you remove the tops as soon as they emerge, they can,t photosynthesise and store food, this should weaken them sufficiently to no longer grow after a year. rgds, tony

[antipodes]

I have an ugly confession to make. I leave them in...
Usually they don't seem to harm the crops in place (this year they are among the onions and the cabbages) and it is a bit of an added bonus to get a few "surprise spuds".
Sometimes I think I am too sentimental with my veg!!

[gwynleg]

I think a potato fairy has visited my plot. I know where I planted them last year but they are coming up every where else too.  I have made raised beds and all of the beds have potatoes in abundance that I am having to cull regularly!
I guess that the compost that I begged, stole and borrowed from various people had a fair few potatoes in it!

[weedgrower]

what gets me is that the volunteers are always in better shape than the ones i dug up last year with no scab and no slug damage. and to think that they have been in the groung a year. it begger belief

[Ren1]

It seems that we are growing leek & potato soup this year!!!

[cornykev]

I must have pulled 30+ of the buggers up this year.  :o   :'(      ;D ;D ;D

[dtw]

I've got a potato plant poking out of the hatch on my compost heap.
I'm going to leave it and see how well it does.  :D