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I'm a complete beginner at this potato lark having got a large garden for the first time.Got a sack of Maris Piper earlier in the year, and going against the advice on the net didn't buy disease free seed potatoes. I picked all the smaller ones out the sack that were happily chitting away at the bottom of the bag

Cut 'em in half and planted 100, and just this last week having run out of shop bought, I dug up10 plants.I've got loads of cracking big spuds off each plant...and up to now just one with a hole in it.

This garden was just a field for donkeys years and took a hell of a lot of digging...I've got half of it tamed now.It's home to thousands of slugs and snails...early every morning I collect a load of huge brown beggars and send them on a mystery trip down the downstairs loo.So I guess I'm just lucky to have such a cracking return for my efforts.

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Sorry to see your problem Compo.

If you lived closer you could have some of mine.

I have had a good year & have seven of spuds bags stashed.

In fact It's been a good year for most things fortunately most of my neighbours like courgettes & marrows :)

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pleased you have had a good crop from leftover spuds. The only problem with planting from a bag is that there is no disease control. You were lucky you didn't import something nasty like blight spores; although to be honest it would be unlikely. But hey! celebrate your success and don't worry about things that haven't happened. you have done well.

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I'v got a bag of potatoes from Morrisons that i forgot about when i went on holiday, they are all sprouting, shall i throw them or is it to late to grow them?,we have no garden space so it would have to be in tubs, I'v got no idea about this kind of thing so if its a waste of time i will throw them away.Thank you for any advice.

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I have cut roots off taters and ate them (the spuds I mean). If you don't want to do that give them to someone with space for them and they will have an early crop next year.

As for slugs? Well they are just things sent to try us and mess us up. You know like traffic wardens and other nuisances.

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AYUP Compo! I have just remembered. I know this sounds a bit like sacrilege but it's an old trick me dad taught me. Get some beer and half fill some empty margarine tubs or suchlike and put them in the garden so that the top is flush with the soil. Try to put a bit of a cover over them because of the rain, but allowing the slugs to get in. The slugs are like us. They love a good booze-up. Trouble is they drown in the stuff. So p-----d they can't climb out. Another trick is to put grit around the tater plants. In the old days of coal fires me mam used to put ashes around them. Slugs can't move along that kind of surface.

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SHURRUP! I work in the catering trade and eat too much as it is. Now what's for breakfast??? Here I go again.

Nosh nosh nosh slurp. Jamie Oliver eat your heart out!

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As you may know we're away camping at the moment, just been to the loos to brush our teeth , I've never seen so many big black slugs in one place, there must've been 50 of them on our wander there and back (all of 200 yards each way !!)

Now what I want to know, if I chucked then in the lake tomorrow night ,would the Carp eat them ?

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Nah....wouldn't see them would they...they're black and it's night time, innit?

Besides, CARP are well known racists aren't they? :rotfl:

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Been a lousy year for the veg garden here. Just too wet, Tomatoes rotted on the vine before they got ripe, same with Green Peppers. Each potato plant produced one spud, if you were lucky. We were in a drought last year so we were glad of the rain initially but it has hardly stopped for more than a day at a time. Reminds me of summers in Nottingham when I was a kid.

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The big black slugs eat detritus, so they are not a problem for gardeners. My problem is "Keeled" slugs. these little bast&rds live underground and are thus immune to the usual slug baiting and catching tricks.

Carni: You can plant potatoes in tubs up until the end of August, but they must be a "First Early" variety to produce anything worth having. If yours are one of the "New" potatop varieties then you can still plant for a small crop at Xmas. They will need protetion after September though.

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I did ttry nematodes but with only limited success - and the price was horrendous. It would cost more arms and legs than I haveto do two acres.

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