Goosebumps on my taters

I'm starting to harvest the 'taters, just like Shoe advised. I've waited until the foliage dies down and then digging.
Yesterday's harvest was better than the previous one (during which I found, on average, one tater per plant).
Still, I found funny bumpy, scaly patches on some of the taters, especially the blue ones. (I'm growing two types, both from Johnny's - red and blue). It was as if they had goosebumps. Not everywhere, but in patches. Some of the patches were rust colored, but not all of them. I peeled them and boiled them and they tasted wonderful, but I'm wondering if they have some kind of crud that I shouldn't be eating. Any ideas, taterheads?

Hah! ♫ Goosebumps on my ta----ters...♫

Sounds like a song to me!

Do you mean the skin is scaley? If so, never fear, they are perfectly edible, just peel the skin if you need to.

Sounds like just a simple case of "scab"...not a big deal.

I still can't get in to dig mine yet...we had MORE rain here last nite, inch and a half. Sure would like some fresh dug taters.

I just finished harvesting our potato crop this evening. Of the 4 cultivars I planted, this year the Red Pontiac out produced all the others. I was really disappointed in the Yukon Gold this year. It is such a good keeper while most others need to be consumed by January or so.

leaflady/EvaMae...

Did you find that the Yukon didn't produce much? I've grown them before and the quantity of the grow-out is not enuff to encourage me to grow them again.

I've grown Red Pontiacs for years (and also Kennebecs) and have been entirely TOO happy with them (if one can be TOO happy about any harvest!)

shoe Yukons grown here while really good tasting thats about what they produced just a taste compared to the red ones I grow in the same dirt.

Did you apply fresh manure to your potatoe patch that helps with scab like growth. Ernie

This message was edited Aug 18, 2004 8:23 PM

Ran back across this thread .. and thought I'd inquire ..

Shoe .. have you been able to get in 'nar and get yore taters dug 'yet' ?? ...

Seems if you haven't, or .. don't happen soon - ya may
as well, leave 'em 'ar .. to sprout in the Spring .. heee

- mags

Our season is so short here that we often harvest our potatoes before they die back... sometimes they don't even bloom.

Hey, Horseshoe... have you ever heard the old Jimmy Dickens tune 'Take and Old Cold Tater and Wait'?

Mags....yep, and nope!

We had a day or so dry enuff to get in and dig 'em up but alas, the majority had rotted in the ground. We were able to get a small portion (very small) of good ones that were at the ends of the rows where there is higher ground. I bet 80% , maybe more, of the crop was not good (and stunk to high heaven!). I ended up plowing them under, prepared the area and planted two double rows of October beans where the spuds were and broadcast crimson clover on each side of the rows to winter over.

In this same area about two years ago we had a very wet Spring and I lost taters in that area, too. I remember it prompted me to write (in the Farm Forum) the following:

‘Tis good advice ye hast given above
I know this for sure and I know this becuz
Once, too soon, I put my taters in the ground
Then ‘long came Spring floods and made them Drown!

‘Twas a sad sad affair, I had been so unkind,
With their un-opened eyes my spuds were quite blind!
The cold rains poured down (‘twas a sight grim)
While I wished and hoped that blind taters could swim!
Horseshoe Griffin

(HAH...and now Ma Nature got me again, eh?)

Weez...I remember Little Jimmy Dickens but can't remember how that song goes. The title sure is appropriate though, eh?

Shoe, Here's the lyrics and a sample of the music. It's particularly appropriate to large families in the old days when the kids had to wait for dinner when company came.

http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiOLDTATER.html

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000003OOP/103-7649313-9271016?v=glance

Just checking in to say that I've harvested the last of my taters - goosebumps and all. The blue ones suffered from more goosebumps than the reds, but I'm boiling 'em up right now. You were right, Shoe, the goosebumps didn't affect the taste at all. They're delicious.

My harvest was pretty puny, though, I must say. I think I averaged 2 taters per plant, which seems very skimpy, given all the hilling and hoeing I did. I'm thinking of skipping taters next year.

Any ideas what I might have done wrong? I had drip irrigation so water wasn't the issue. Too much water might have been. No visible signs of bugs or disease. Just a lousy harvest and these darn goosebumps.

Ivory.... taters love potassium, so perhaps that will help for next year. Also a bit of N, but not too much.

We really had a wet year here in NC...(most of my taters rotted cus I couldn't get in to dig them.).

I hope you'll give taters another try next year, even if you just do a smaller row. (Less work hilling!) I really look forward to the "tater diggin'" each year w/my daughter (and freshh french fries!).

Ivory potatoes like new ground and like shoe said go easy on the N I never use anything except well aged rotted and turned cow do do. Years a go I made the mistake of using fresh manure and got scabby bumpy brown hearted spuds,Ernie