Potatoes and frogs aka Toad in the hole?

Harvesting my potatoes and many of them had been half eaten.  It looked strange. Not gnawed like rats or beetles.  As I dyg I thinknI found the culprit? A fat, ugly frog. There! Burried in with the tubers.

So many questions
Is it frogs eating my potatoes?
Were they eaten  y something because they were under wsyered or watered irregularly?

Normaly I would cut away the eaten bits and cook remaining but not after seeing the frog.  

frogs/toads don’t have the equipment (teeth) to eat potatoes. i suspect rodents. your amphibian friend may have just entered through a hole the real offender made.

Why not cut away the eaten part and cook the other half? I mean, you say in cases you would do it. Then why not now?

Was it a frog or a toad? Those are two very different species of animals.

I think you're right Greg!

Voles are usually the ones that are suspected.

This might help:

https://permies.com/t/141377/Rid-Voles

Inge I feel like such an idiot not knowing how to tell them apart.  I even screamed and ran (fancy that) so all I can tell you is it was a brown jumpy thing, which is why I said toad/frog.  

I was concerned that if it was a toad it might have spat poison on the potatoes to dissolve and drink flesh. I don't know?

I have seen those 'tracks' in the lawn and did not know was making them.  So voles are a visting.  Perhaps this is why kitty loves the potatoe bed.

Thanks, Greg.  Incientalky, my no dig potatoes fared better and you would have thought all the cut grass on no dig tats would have attracted them there.


PS He is not my friend.  I have issues. :-D

well, we’re permaculturists- he’s your friend even if you don’t think you’re his.

frogs and toads are obligate carnivores. they only eat ‘meat’ - bugs, worms, spiders, etc.

I would make a suggestion that it could be slugs eating your potatoes, they can hollow out a potato nearly overnight, which would also explain the toad/frog hoppy thing being there as well.

No slugs spotted (yet) in this patch in Portugal. Thought it might be too dry for them.

Oh good because there are plenty of spiders here.

Hi Jenny. Toads and frogs are my garden-friends. I love to see them, because they eat the slugs!
The difference is fairly easy: a frog jumps and a toad doesn't. A frog likes to be in water. So probably this was a toad.
Mostly the toad just stays where it is, or otherwise it will walk/crawl away from you. Toads look a little ugly, and they are somewhat poisonous. But that poison is not very dangerous (only irritating), you can wash it away.

It was a toad then.  It was lethagic, ugly  and no jumping.  I am glad it did not jump.  

I also have a recipe for Toads in Holes ;-) but that toad was to ugly to cook.

From what tou describe this ugly brutecwas a toad and definitely not one that would go into my toad in the hole recipe.

Further reading has led me to think the many ants in the gsrden has attracted the toad in. The veg bed has got so dry and the extreme heat event in Portugal is not helping matters.

I have lizards and snakes, i would love to attract some toads!
But i feel your pain, sometimes we get an icky feeling about useful animals.