Why are the leaves on my potatos going brown?

[skatergirl]

They seemed perfectly healthy. We have just come home after ten days away and the leaves on my first crop are going brown. Does this just mean that they are ready or have they got a terrible disease? The second crop are fine (they are flowering). We ate some from the first crop yesterday and they seemed okay.

Check the stems, sounds like a bug attack.

The stems seem to be fine. They are not brown and there are no little creatures. The second crop are right next to them and they are fine.

Did they flower already? They may well just be ready. But unless you have a little dig round the side you'll never know.

If you planted earlies or second earlies, they may well be ready about now to harvest and the foliage die back is a sign of this. Different varieties mature at different times, i.e. you could have 2 different varieties of second early potatoes and they would mature at a slightly diffent time from each other.

Thank you. They are first earlies, we have been away for 10 days so I suspect they flowered while we were away. We have eaten some and they seem ready and fine.