THE TATTIES THREAD 2018

It's only the (relatively) mild slightly annoying early blight, not the deadly devastating late blight.

 

Thanks Scrungee...so do I leave them or pull them?

 

Thanks for the advice, John...decision made, all tops chopped as I think the Blight might have reached the Tomato plants in the greenhouse



Now the tops have been removed can I leave the spuds in the containers and just feed / water until they are ready to harvest in about another 5 weeks, I think I read on here that the spuds will continue to swell or do I have to stop watering?

 

Hi Sheps, I would continue to water them, perhaps turn one pot out and see how big the Potatoes are........I'm sure there are many on here who could advise you better. Good luck.

 

Thanks for the advice, John... it's appreciated.

 

Don't forget the Mint with your lovely Potatoes

 

MMMmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

And real Butter (as my Mum used to say)

 

Wondering if Blight Watch is really worth being signed up to? Had absolutely no rain for weeks and weeks and then last night had enough to make the driveway damp (less than useful amount!) but now had an alert again. If I was a professional grower I'd have cut my throat by now as we are only just into June and I've had 5 alerts already.My spuds look absolutely fine so think from now on I'll just keep an eye open for the dreaded blight as crossed.

 

I've started getting blightwatch alerts every day again, had 13 including this morning's.

All my Kestrel spuds have now been devasted by really bad early blight, the worst I can remember, doesn't bode well for the late blight season. It's only my Kestrels that have been affected, luckily I only had about 6 plants affected, I had another 6 elsewhere that didn't get it so it couldn't have been anything to do with the tubers.

 

None of that margarine filfth! Real butter + Mint + home grown spuds = perfection.

 

I am growing earlies (Swift and Winston) in compost bags in the greenhouse. I had a furtle/rootle in the bags this am. The Swift have quite a few hen sized tatties which was what I was sort of expecting and on the menu for supper. The Winston are flaming huge, the size of good going bakers. The top growth is still going strong and no signs yet of any sort of die down. I was intending to just keep having a search for spuds and not just empty the bags out but perhaps as the Winston have been growing spuds like Triffids I would be better to harvest them all now? This is all your fault @JWK as I read you grow Winston in your greenhouse and I thought as you would appear to know what you are talking about I'd copy you. Are Winston ok to bake or shall I just cut them into about 8 sections and boil? What a very warm May will do for spud growing!

 

Many thanks @JWK. Next year I'll have a search about in the bags a bit earlier!!!No doubt the latter part of Spring in 2019 will be freezing and the Winston will be the size of peas at this time.

 

If you use pots it's a lot easier to slide the whole lot out in one piece, pick out all the sizeable spuds, then slide what's left back in again for the tiddlers to grow bigger.