patotoes growing out of my compost bin.

I stopped putting potato peelings in my compost bin because they were growing .

The plants are easy enough to remove as you use the compost and you do get a free helping of potatoes!

i like the idea of free potatoes, we do use so many of them, so it is a shame to leave the peal out of my mixture, i take it that i can just put the plants back in to compost, thank you both for your help.

No, once you have taken them out they will not really be happy being replanted.

no Owdboggy, i ment i could put the plants back into the compost heap to be composted once i have the potatoes from them lol. was thinking of recyling them lol

I put potato peelings on the compost every day and rarely get potatoes growing in it. Perhaps your peelings are too thick? <grin>

I stopped putting potato peelings in the bins, too, because they sprouted. one year we divided and replanted the small potatoes in a bed and got a really good crop in October, but have since stopped even this as the crop is not guaranteed to be virus free, I believe. Like the note about the thickness tho, Andrewr. Also, if the compost is dark brown and crumbly, with a sweet earthy smell, it is ready. But I would use it in pure state only for bed fertilising, not for seed germinating, as may be too strong. can perhaps use, however, to bulk up bought compost. Perhaps others with more experience can help here?

Just a quick thunk! If your potatoes have blight or any other nasty disease on them, then do not compost the tops, burn or bin. Domestic type heaps do not get hot enough to kill all these pathogens.

good point owdboggy, maybe i will just play safe and leave them out in future.

I cut my potato skins up quite small and put them in the wormery and some still sprout - but its dead easy to just take them out before using the compost - even the worms dont like them!!

So long as they aren't diseased, I don't think there's anything to worry about. It can be a bit irritating having potatoes sprout in the beds you have mulched with garden compost if you haven't been careful, but it's not the end of the world. And it's interesting seeing how far they can sometimes drive their stems in the compost bin. Isn't it great there are all these instructions on how to grow things and sometimes they just grow well regardless of how badly we treat them? It just reminds me of Alan Titchmarsh saying that you have to remember in gardening that plants actually want to grow.

thats a very good point Buzzbee.