Patate

Here in the UK I have a catalogue which is advertising late season ( second crop ) new potatoes which you can plant now straight into the ground and will be ready from late October. They also state to leave some in the ground undisturbed so you can harvest them for Christmas Day! Perhaps your local garden centre can be of help? Good luck!

Grazie francesca.....................I like the sound of these..............mind you, in the heat here in Le Marche at the mo, they'll probably come up ready roasted !!!!

...... I've got an infestation of Colarado Potato beetle! Horrible things that even the chickens won't eat. They are voracious eaters and stripped all the leaves from 2 or 3 plants overnight! I removed by hand and then disposed of them in some old vinegar.Reading up on these, they appear to be a huge problem in North America, but I didn't expect to see them here. Chemical pesticidesseem to be the only way to deal with them, but I'd really rather not use these.Does anyone have any experience of dealing with these?Russ

Russ how come you always manage to find the interesting beetley things? As far as I can remember, the only thing you can do is to keep getting up in the morning and picking off as many as you can. There is probably some kind of spray you can get (we don't like to use that sort of thing round here), but an Italian neighbour just said to keep picking them off like you are doing. Good luck.

.....but I'll be out there in the morning to make sure another batch haven't hatched! It's like Gremlins IIhttp://felderfarm.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/potato-beetle-larvae1.jpg