My potatoes look monstrous, all covered with spots and growths. What happened?
The soil bacteria known as scab. According to seedsman Shepherd Ogden, virtually all garden soil carries this fungus, so the idea is to prevent it from flourishing. You can do this by rotating your potatoes so that they don’t grow in the same spot more than once every half decade; avoiding fresh manure, which may have scab bacteria that survived the trip down the animal’s alimentary canal; refraining from liming your potato patch, as that lowers the very acidity which inhibits scab growth; and using scab resistant seed potatoes. There is nothing you can do to salvage this year’s crop, although you can eat what is left over after you trim off the corky portions. Next year, look for these scab resistant varieties: Anoka, Banana, Russian Banana, Bison, Carola, Early Gem, Erik, Frontier Russet, Gold Rush (AKA Goldrush), Jemsag, Krantz, La Rouge, Mcintyre, Norgold Russet, Norkotah, Norland, Onaway, Ontario, Purple Marker, Red Dale, Rhinered, Sangre, Sebago, Sierra, Steuben, Red Viking and P
