Spuds

[couscous]

I'm a veritable fund of useless information!

[shiney]

At least I'll know never to eat 21lbs of good spuds or 7lbs of green ones!

[alcina]

I will have to go back to my veggy book on that - I may have got that mixed up as I remember reading something about if you had had blight to cut the vegetation off...... or something like that!

Do you have blight? Blight is a fungal infection (can also affect yer toms too!) which slowly (quickly) kills the plants and eventually the spuds. It caused the various potato famines in history! The idea of cutting off the halums is so that it stops the fungus spreading to the spuds and making them inedible. You don't need to cut off the halums unless you have blight.

If you do have blight and cut off the halums *don't* put the cut vegetation on your compost heap. Burn it. Burn it *all*. Allegedly close, humid conditions make it more likely to get blight (and the other fungal infections that afflict plants), so keey yer spuds breezy, not too closely planted and water the soil not the leaves.

Alcina

[Andy Hamilton]

At least I'll know never to eat 21lbs of good spuds or 7lbs of green ones!

careful, the green ones are poisonus.

[Millymollymandy]

I don't have blight, just something I'd read. No problems with breezy here! No colorado beetles either thank goodness! In fact they are a picture of health and flowering nicely now, though I suspect the one with the mauve flowers amongst all the white flowers is an escapee!!

[couscous]

I get blight quite badly so I'm trying a new patch of ground for them this year. I always mean to spray with that copper stuff (I assume it's organic?) but forget to do it until the first brown spots appear - and then it's too late.
I read an article about blight in Peru. Tatties are a staple in Peru apparently and they grow loads of different varieties so if some are blighted some will not be. Oh to have that much ground to grow loads of different varieties.
I also read somewhere that it's not a good idea to compost tattie haulm even if it's healthy - anyone else heard that?

[Andy Hamilton]

I also read somewhere that it's not a good idea to compost tattie haulm even if it's healthy - anyone else heard that?

I go further than that and don't compost any part of the spud as you can spread blight that way.

I also always grow more than one variety. Normally some that are bought seed spuds and some that are from the green grocers. The seed ones are less likely to get blight apparently as they are grown at high altitudes. But never had any trouble with blight. Always, always grow spubs in a differnet place each year too.

[Millymollymandy]

Success! Dug up three plants for our first feast of new potatoes! Some of them were huge though - shame as I like my new potatoes tiny, but these ones are supposed to not be big yielders so there were only about 8 each plant - Belle de Fontenay is the variety.

They were all healthy and not a single blemish! Happy bunny me! Now if only my sad looking holey cabbages could come good like the spuds.... well you win some you lose some!

Question is - do I start digging up the rest and store them or leave in the ground until we need them - bearing in mind some of them were so big and I wouldn't want them to get bigger.

[Wombat]

To certain extent I think mit depends on the variety, whether they are a "use now" sort or for storage. If they are to be stored for any length of time you should let the tops die down before harvesting.

Congrats on the good spuds!

Nev

[hay331]

I get blight quite badly so I'm trying a new patch of ground for them this year. I always mean to spray with that copper stuff

My hubby has agreed to dig up another patch of lawn and I suggested growing spuds. The neigbour said not to bother in that bit as the chap who lived here previously used that bit and lost his spuds to blight. this was more than 6/7 yrs ago and there has been grass growing there since. what is this copper stuff and am I likely to need it?

By the way, my waste bin grown spuds are coming on a treat

[Wombat]

Probably copper hydroxide- Bordeaux miture - orignated in France suprisingly enough when they used is to deter birds(?) from the grapes and found that it cured fungus disease. If I remember correctly is made by mixing copper sulphate and hydrated lime - or buy it from your local garden centre.

Nev

[Millymollymandy]

Bordeaux mix has many uses as a fungicide and spraying fruit trees is one of them (for peach leaf curl and apple scab). Can't remember the rest but it is on the packet in the potting shed!

I noticed some of my 2nd early spuds dying back like the earlies so I may dig up one of them today for a look see!

The earlies do have storing qualities but not as good as the 2nd earlies which are Bintje, well known for storage and excellent for chips, baked potatoes etc.

I shall take some round to a friend who is supplying me with free straw (he has bought an old wreck of a barn in France and the "upstairs" is full of about 4 foot of straw - which he needs to get rid of, of course!).

Makes me feel good to be able to give away my excess produce!

[Wombat]

Free straw for free spuds...............sounds like a good trade to me!

Nev

[couscous]

Well - I sprayed yesterday with Bordeaux mixture. I chose a really good vintage but it did seem such a waste.

No sign of blite yet.