Are there other possibilities? Yes, but voles would be one of the first things I'd think of too and it sure won't hurt to treat for them (although I'd take the Juicy Fruit with a grain of salt :)..

But don't take the "missing seed potato" too literally as that is common with even healthy plants depending on the size of the seed to begin with. Small ones tend to just mush out of existence.

And don't "wait on blooming" either as it often never happens.

So my main question would be were there also potatoes where you pulled up the plant? If they were gone too then, at least in my garden it is almost always raccoons, skunks and/or squirrels digging them up.

Dave

Eeeewww --juicy fruit and salt? :)

Thanks, Dave -- good to know about the mushing out of existence -- yes, these were small seed potatoes. And when I pulled it up, there were no potatoes at all.

So I won't wait for the flowering that might never come! These are 60 day potatoes (Yukon Red Gold) so in another couple weeks I guess I'll just check to see if they "made." Hopefully the voles won't hit too many of them. In the mean time I'll at least put briars into any holes I see.

Thigh high? Seems very tall for potato foliage. I wonder if you have been feeding and inducing a lot of leafy growth at the expense of potatoes.

Good luck with the voles. I've had them for years and have just learned to live with them. Nothing I have tried, and I mean NOTHING, really works.

Laceyvail is right. Even if you get down to one vole, they can do a lot of damage. One year I had them eat every potato in a 25-foot double row!

Go figure, but they seem to lose interest in my garden in midsummer. If I hold some potatoes and green them up really well and plant in mid-June they leave them alone and I get some late potatoes.

Juicy fruit doesn't work, ditto gummy bears. When I find their runs, I poke stout sticks in them, which at least makes them work harder. When you find a major corridor, you can excavate a hole, place a snap-type mouse trap baited with apple in it, and cover with a board. You can trap a lot of voles this way.

Drat. Doesn't sound promising about the voles. I saw a lot of holes in April, so I went around with repellant and raspberry cane trimmings. Fewer holes now. Hoping they'll leave my main crop potatoes (planted last week) alone.

Floral -- I threw a little Dr. Earth in when planting (new to me, I used to pour a little fish emulsion in, but decided it was probably best not to wet them). That's it on feeding. Oh, and they were covered for a month w/ AG 19 so maybe they were reaching a bit for sunshine? But, I'm short, so thigh high may be shorter than you're imagining :)