Your comments and tips

29 Dec 09, Chris (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

Janet, those fruit on the potatoes are potato berries - they are poisonous and should just be left. You shouldn't need to stake the plants, but you might have fed them a bit much nitrogen if they are growing tons of leaf. You've probably got new potatoes you can harvest now if you feel around ('bandicoot') under the plants, otherwise just leave until the plants die off to harvest full-sized potatoes.

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14 Dec 09, Janet (Australia - temperate climate)

I've not had much success with potatoes in the past. My present crop seems to be OK but should I stake the plants as they are falling all over the place even though I've been adding more soil and straw. Also little bunches of green"fruit" have appeared on some plants. Anyone know what these are?

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02 Dec 09, Graeme (Australia - temperate climate)

Mary, I'm growing potatoes for the first time this year and the heat knocked mine around as well. However, with plenty of watering and the cool change we've had this week, they have come back.

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26 Nov 09, adam synnott (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

Teashy, potatoes often resprout after a shock like that, have faith, and they could be okay. In my climate, they often get frosted off completely, but then come back from the dead. Mary, potatoes have a really hard time in the tropics/sub tropics. I think there will be some years when there is just too much against them. This year seems to be a bit hotter than normal, so maybe they have a few too many bugs this year, combined with the unusual heat, it could just be a year to concentrate on other crops. If you plant them in the shade, they will do a lot better. It isn't too late to plant some fresh ones, and don't put them in direct sunlight. They are quite tenacious, and will grow in quite low light. The reason they didn't develop more taters is, as you rightly point out, that they just didn't have the time to grow to their full potential.

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26 Nov 09, Mary (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

My potatoes were eaten by the big ladybirds and grasshoppers. The recent heat finished them off. I dug up some today and there was a small number of developed potatoes but not as many as there should be. Is this because they did not get to flower? I grew them in old plastic garbage bins and filled them with mulch as they grew. There was no potatoes until I dug down to the dirt so what is the point of "hilling" them?

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22 Nov 09, Teashy B (Australia - temperate climate)

I have had my potatoes in for maybe 6 weeks or a little bit more, due to the extremem heat we have been having the leaves have died very quickly and all I can see is the dirt underneath. Do I just leave them in and hope for the best or do I pull them up? Any comments or hints would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks

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21 Nov 09, emma (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

I am growing potatoes in inner melbourne, in a tiny back yard plot. I planted farm potatoes from ballarat and they sprouted quickly and grew about four very healthy looking plants. I decided to stake them or at least support them and they grew to about 1.2m. I rarely remembered to build up the soil around the stalks. Now green caterpillars are decimating the plants and they are looking terrible. They haven't flowered. Should I leave them in or forget this crop and try again next year?

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19 Nov 09, Gwynneth Grogan (Australia - temperate climate)

Some of my potatoes have curly leaves and the actual potatoe is split, would this be the heat.

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09 Nov 09, pete (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

i grew potatoes this year. kipfer sebago and pontiac. i put heaps of compost into the garden and all my potatoes went really spindly and leggy they had plenty of sunlight and all the potatoes that i harvested were quite small, have i put too much compost/manures in my garden beds? everything else seems to be doing fine...

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08 Nov 09, cons (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

Do the tubers grow along the stem or on the roots? A friend says hilling the plants is so that more tubers grow - is this right? How do I know when to lift them? Is it when thee flowers die down?

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