Oh, dear. Are my potatoes dead?

I could cry. I planted seed potatoes (white and yukon gold) last month and they were doing so beautifully. Put hay around them to raise up the bed. So... even though it's been spring enough for the azaleas to bloom, for two nights in a row the water in my birdbath turned to ice. The potatoes' stems are still green, but the leaves have blackened. Is there any saving them?

Thanks. Sigh.

Mine did the same thing, but they seem to be putting out new leaves anyway. Hopefully this is just a set back and not a full loss.

David

They should be good. I noticed yesterday where five of the ones I planted on Valentines Day were just starting to crack the surface of the ground.

Unless the rains set in it won't be long before we all have bunches of taters.

Happy Gardening!

Jerry

Fortunately there is a lot of energy in the seed potato so it can put up new growth. We're probably past the cold weather for a while, but have you got any row cover you can use if overnight freezes are predicted? Do you monitor reputable weather websites like noaa.gov and wunderground.com -- not weather.com or the fools on TV? :)

This message was edited Mar 4, 2009 12:00 PM

I admit I didn't check on noaa last week, but with both the weather channel and the local stations calling for a low of 38 - 40, I figured I could trust them! I certainly would have taken the 4 minutes it would have taken to get a sheet out and drape it over them if I'd known. Thanks for the input and the encouragement -- I'll just let them be (and see if Mother Nature knows what she's doing...?)

Think I should trim off the definitely dead leaves, or just leave them all alone?

Mine have been frost nipped and slow go to the point that I had about given up. I just looked at them and they're really kickin. I planted them around Jan 20. In an effort to increase production, I didn't cover them very much. My idiot logic was that more green leaves would make faster growth and I'd add soil when they grew. They haven't grown so basically they just sat there and everytime they tried to grow the frost got them. When I heard this last cold spell was coming, I rushed to add soil and it protected them. Next year I'll go back to covering them about 4" initially because the soil insulates and allows lots of root growth to help with rapid recovery after frost.