Hi! I recently discovered that the potatoes in my garden were no good. They were mushy, covered in white spots, and smelled terrible. My soil is mostly clay, and I unintentionally overwatered them, which is what I believe caused the issue. The plants surrounding them haven't had any issues though. I dug up the sad spuds and threw them away yesterday.

My questions are: Do I need to clean the soil now, or is it good as is? If I need to clean it, what do I do?

I want to plant a fall garden, but I don't want to put any of the plants at risk.

Thanks!

Welcome to the site!
Moving your question to the Vegetable and Fruit forum.

Interested to see some thoughts on this.
My only thought is, you need to improve the soil overall, and organic matter is one of the best improvements for most soils.
My second only thought is once the potatoes are gone, it's not likely to affect unrelated crops. I might want to turn it a few times though, get sun and air in it, and trust the soil ecosystem to return to healthy balance.

I dug some potatoes too, and found one hill had a couple rotting, I think I left them too long, would have had a huge yield if not for losing the biggest ones.
It is now staying warm overnight, like 70, and I just read something like the warm nights can make the potatoes reverse their storage metabolism and make the tubers decline.

Cait said: Hi! I recently discovered that the potatoes in my garden were no good. They were mushy, covered in white spots, and smelled terrible. My soil is mostly clay, and I unintentionally overwatered them, which is what I believe caused the issue. The plants surrounding them haven't had any issues though. I dug up the sad spuds and threw them away yesterday.

My questions are: Do I need to clean the soil now, or is it good as is? If I need to clean it, what do I do?

I want to plant a fall garden, but I don't want to put any of the plants at risk.

Thanks!

How deep were they planted?
What variety of potato?
When did you plant them?
Did you plant whole or cut potatoes?
How did you prepare the ground?

https://farm.desigusxpro.com/e...

I'd say I planted them 5 or 6 inches deep in mid-May, I used russets that I chitted, halved, then dried for a couple of days. I used my tiller to mix bagged in-ground garden soil, compost from my bin, and the clay soil that's already in the garden.

I would avoid planting other members of the family Solanaceae. Soft rot in the ground is usually caused by bacteria. Bacterial infections are accelerated by wet conditions. Other than solar sterilization I can't think of anything you could do right now.

Solar sterilization, fallow ground left to bake and heal. How long? awhile.

Cait said: I'd say I planted them 5 or 6 inches deep in mid-May, I used russets that I chitted, halved, then dried for a couple of days. I used my tiller to mix bagged in-ground garden soil, compost from my bin, and the clay soil that's already in the garden.

As Dill and the article say, the nasties are already in the ground.
I would not cut the potatoes as that leaves no wound for what causes the rot to enter.
You can get a compound/s to treat potatoes before planting.
In fifty plus years of planting potatoes I have not not had more than a handful of potatoes go bad in the ground and I put in, guessing, from 40 to near 100 hills over the years.
I actually do not hill, and plant deep, 8-12 inches down, and now do put all but a few into the ground whole.
I also space the plants wide , two shovel lenths apart center to center.