Topic: Has blight struck yet?

[Fork]

at least wiv spuds you can pull greenery off and spuds will prob be ok, but wiv toms you lose the lot

I beg to differ but if you dont catch the blight soon enough it will definately ruin your potatoes too.

We have blight here too........but not on my plot yet thankfully!

[Oldmanofthewoods]

Farmers slot on Radio 4 said that 1/3-1/2 of Peas has been lost and that 1/4 of the spud s have been lost to blight beacuse of the wet weather.  Chap buying a sack of spuds this time last year was £5.50/sack, now £12.50.  Hold on tight we might have some allotment prowlers later in the year.

Jack

[Fork]

Heard it on the local radio here too.It said that the price of peas would definately increase but nothing was said about potatoes.It also said that cabbage and cauliflower was suffering too.

The farmers around here have been selling them at £7:50 a bag since last year.

[norfolklass]

yep, on the news: the price of fish and chips and mushy peas is set to soar...

[Oldmanofthewoods]

Chips I am worried about but even after living in Manchester for several years, mushy peas (or guacamole as Peter Mandelson thought) leaves me speechless with horror.

[Fork]

You cant beat a large dish of mushy peas with some mint sauce....yummy !

[Oldmanofthewoods]

Dear God, just the thought!  My oppo's up there used to order; Meat Pie with grazy poured over it, then mushy peas poured over that.   Eating that after a gallon or so of Mild???????????????????

I can remember when spuds were so expensive peeps used to stay on their allotments to stop them getting knicked!

(Good memory, not an Old Git!)

[Robert_Brenchley]

that looks horribly like blight.

[Simon05]

got blight here too in sutton-in-ashfield near mansfield nottinghamshire.  The pentland javelin had blight on the leaves but not on the tubers, ratte as got it on the tubers and leaves, we just cut the bad bit off and eat the rest

[ruffmeister]

hopefully next year it should be better for the toms

[SueSteve]

We went to the allotment today, we had a very quick look at the potatoes and all seemed ok.
As we were leaving I noticed that next doors spuds were looking a bit sad, a closer look reveled blight.
I then had a closer look at ours, and they too had blight :(, not as bad as next door, the patches on the leaves were about a penny in size or smaller, but most of the 50 plants had it :(
We have now cut all the tops off, should this save the potatoes? There is a small bit of stalk level with the ground for each plant, should I cover it with soil? Or won't the blight affect it?
Other than that I have 10 charlottes ready for digging up, they are next to the main crop, I am a little worried about digging them up as I dont want to put any fungi that might be on the soil into the ground that might affect the main crop.
Any suggestions?
I intend to dig them up tonight.
Thanks,
Sue
(Glocuester)

[debster]

mine appear to be ok but just wondering would the fact that i am only growing in a garden on the middle of a council estate (no other gardening going on around as far as i can see) with the nearest allotments quite a long distance away make it better for me? does the close proximity of so many plants make it more likely to occur?

[steveuk]

blight here in cambridgeshire, my spuds and toms took hammering.

[weedin project]

So far here in Waterlooville all is well, but you never know.

Last week we went on hols to Devon and looked around RHS Rosemoor.  They had rows of spuds in the veg patch that were still in the ground but had no stems at all showing above ground.  I presume this was to stop the rot getting to them at all.  I didn't remember to ask any of the staff about it, so I don't know if cutting off all the stems/foliage stops the tubers from maturing more - anyone know the answer to that?

[Trevor_D]

I've sprayed the tomatoes three times. Think I've lost the lot - sort of creeping blight that gets slightly worse each day. 80-plus plants - an entire freezerful for two families.

And the spuds are getting it now; again, very slowly. Underneath they're fine, so I might save those.

But the tomatoes....

[Marymary]

Trevor I know just how you feel.  every day I come home to find more - first on the leaves then on the stalk of the leaves & today several patches on the main stem.  I have sprayed all mine but it doesn't seem to be halting it.  I've got 65 plants of which about 6 are supposed to be blight resistant varities - we shall see.  :)

[growmore]

If you aint already got the blight give em a spraying of Dithane945 ..
It will help to protect them against it ...

[AlanP]

We do not have it up here in Cumbria yet, but just to make sure I have erected a mesh net right across the country from Blackpool to Hull, that should stop it spreading up here  :)

[Chris Graham]

As far as I can tell, I dont have it yet.

Possibly one of my outside tomato plants may, but it looks grey not brown and doesnt effect the stems.

fingers crossed

[luckydog]

It's arrived in Mid Wales.    Checked my outside toms last night, and found 2 plants with black blotches on stems & brown spots on leaves, so have removed them from other plants. Is it still worth spraying the remaining plants to try & save them?