Main Crop Harvest

Some of the Desiree potatoes drying in the sun

Forking up more

After an unpromising start this morning, the weather improved, the sun came out and it became the perfect day to harvest the potatoes. It took a lot longer to dig them up than to write about it, I'll feel it tomorrow! My very first harvest of main crop ever doesn't look too bad although I did damage quite a few forking them up. 

Some of the tubers have potato scab (Streptomyces scabies)  and reading about it I've discovered that Desiree are more prone to this infection of the skin. Apparently it won't affect the eating quality as the damage is only cosmetic but I wonder if it will affect how well they keep.

Scab can be particularly troublesome if there's a dry Spring when the tubers are forming - we had the driest Spring I've ever seen. A soil pH at or below 5.2 will suppress scab but I've read that scab infection builds up in the soil so I'll have to think what to do next year.