Last years potatoes

[Mr Potato-head]

Hi,

quite new to this allotment lark - thought we had dug up all last years potatoes but this year we have a lot of potato plants coming through in the same place. Will the potatoes they produce be ok or should we dig them up and sow new ones elsewhere?
Thanks

[Mr Potato-head]

[cornykev]

They are called volunteers
Some leave them in and see what they amount to
Some say they will carry disease
It doesn't matter how carefully you dig them up there's always a few small ones that get away
I dig mine out because my onions always follow them
They should be rotated to stop the build up of diseases
Well that's my three pennith
;D

[aquilegia]

I leave mine in. I tend to think that if a useful plant wants to grow somewhere, I'll let it! I may regret this in a few months when everything is stricken with blight, but I'll take the risk!

[pigeonseed]

I'm always wondering about this - I'm digging the shoots up all the time (I'm following them with onions too!) partly because the onions couldn't cope with potato plants growing under their little bums, and partly because of blight.

But as blight blows in on the wind, and there are lots of sources of it, it hardly seems worth it sometimes. Wasn't it Robert Brenchley who said the main problem is farmers who leave reject potatoes uncovered and sprouting?

[Robert_Brenchley]

It's one of them, but volunteers are the other big problem. When we get an outbreak on the site without a single reported farm case within twenty miles, I draw my own conclusions!