potatoes growing in the compost bin

thelizzyfiles

hi all , been on holiday and come back to find potatoes growing in the compost bin! do i dig them out or leave them? note to self not to put old pot's in the bin next time many thanks x

angelavdavis

Leave them, they won't do any harm and will be a bonus crop! They can occur either through tiny potatoes being composted or just from peelings.

DaftyDuck

They may be excellent as well. Compost bin is an often-overlooked growing site - it's ideal for melons, marrows & courgettes, when the bin is full.

christineperseus

DaftyDuck wrote: »

They may be excellent as well. Compost bin is an often-overlooked growing site - it's ideal for melons, marrows & courgettes, when the bin is full.

But not if watering with 'recycled' beer!!!

I have potatoes sprouting in my flower boxes!!!
I put a layer of my home-made compost at bottom.

gazza975526570

Just be carefull is your growing new spuds/toms as they can spread blight onto your new crops

oligeo

so should we not compost potatoes or potato peelings?

Lotus-eater

gazza975526570 wrote: »

Just be carefull is your growing new spuds/toms as they can spread blight onto your new crops

They can only spread blight if they've had blight and I've yet to hear of one incident where this has occurred.
Ideally you don't want potato sourced or grown in compost to be spread where a potato crop is to be grown.

valk_scot

oligeo wrote: »

so should we not compost potatoes or potato peelings?

I don't. I don't compost the tops either. All crop potatoes (but especially the supermarket ware crop potatoes) carry a lot of disease and this builds up dramatically from year to year which is one reason it's best to but in new seed potatoes (with a lower disease burden) and plant them in a strict crop rotation in the garden or plot. But that's a complete waste of time if you're then going to dig in a few buckets of home made compost containing disease spores etc from last year's composted potato remains.

So all peelings, potato tops and the tops of their close cousin tomatoes get disposed off in the bin in our house. I similarly dig up and dispose of any volunteer potato plants popping up where they're not wanted (I would eat any baby potatoes that had formed before I found them) and I'd get any potato plants growing in my compost bin out of there pdq. I used to work on the Seed Potato Scheme at the Scottish Dept of Agriculture and two of the main domestic vectors through which potato diseases were carried were through composting potato remains and not clearing the ground properly of last year's crop. There's no positive advantages of composting potato remains (the mass lost to your compost system is pretty negligible overall) so why take the chance? The old maxim of not composting diseased plant material is the one to listen to here, and potato plant material is always diseased unless it's only one generation away from being micro-propagated.

DCFC79

oligeo wrote: »

so should we not compost potatoes or potato peelings?

we used to and didnt have any issues

gazza975526570

Lotus-eater wrote: »

They can only spread blight if they've had blight and I've yet to hear of one incident where this has occurred.
Ideally you don't want potato sourced or grown in compost to be spread where a potato crop is to be grown.

Potatoe council recommend removing all of the current years potatoes due to spread of disease

why take the risk?

PS - i could read one without it being in bold