Help!! I just started to harvest a couple of
potato plants today, just to have some with dinner for the next few nights, and something is terribly WRONG!!!
The taters come out of the ground just fine. No problem there. The problem starts about an hour or so after I harvest. When I dig them up, the skins are nice and smooth. Beautiful spuds actually. Much better than anything I've been seeing in the store, that's for sure! I keep them in the shade until I can get around to washing them off, so I'm pretty sure sunlight is not the culprit.
But then, about an hour or so after digging up, when I go to wash them, they have something on the surface that reminds me for all the world of warts! It doesn't affect the taste of the tubers, and so far I just peel them off along with the skin. (sorry, but I've never developed a taste for tater skins!)
I am concerned for the viability of long term storage of these
potatoes. Will this lessen the storage life? Most important of all...what the heck is this? How do I prevent it in the future? Am I doing something wrong?
My usual M.O. with our
potato patch is to dig what we need. This can be at any point of the season after which point I feel confident that I'll find at least a few pounds of "baker" sized taters from each plant, along with a few hands full of smaller spuds for a yummy batch of new peas and
potatoes. So, waiting for the plants to go dormant at the end of the season, and doing the whole water cessation for two weeks thing usually doesn't happen around here.
These are Chieftain and Pontiac Reds that this is happening to. The Burbank Russets so far do not show the slightest sign of this.I have yet to dig up any of the Yukon Golds to see if this happens to them as well. I thought at first this might be a problem intrinsic to thin skinned
potatoes, but the blues that we've harvested a few weeks ago are doing just fine (and are absolutely delicious I might add!) and show no signs of this nasty scabby warty thing happening to them either.
ANY information or insight that anyone is willing to share is greatly appreciated. I really need an answer to this before it drives me up the ever loving wall!!