Potato problems

Hi to all from a new member.

I've recently taken up vegetable gardening, with potatoes, tomatoes and courgettes all in a small plot. The tomatoes and courgettes have only been planted out about two weeks ago after being raised from seed in my greenhouse - they seem to be doing well, however...

I went away on holiday for a week, and returned to find some of my potatoes have been affected by something- I'm not sure what. A look around the internet seems to point to blackleg, but I thought a forum might give me a better understanding of my problem and what to do.

The plot was previously grass, having had potatoes in about six years ago, and nothing since except grass.

I planted first earlies - four rows of De Ree Home Guard, and two rows of Maris Bard - in late February, through cross slits in black plastic. I have applied some general fertilizer twice since.

The Maris Bard seem to have been worst affected - two plants have fallen over, stems black and rotted, leaves withered away completely. I pulled the remains of the plants up, and there were a good number of small potatoes, varying from too small to peel, to ones about four inches long. One of the tubers when we cut it on half had rot in the centre, and a good few had a holes in the side, in which slugs have crawled inside.

There are a few plants showing yellow leaves, and some with a few yellow leaves with black spots on - see photo's. The Maris Bard are most affected, but also the Home Guard are showing some signs. There are apparantly healthy plants right next door to affected plants.

I hope I have provided all the relevant info, and any help would be greatly appreciated as to what I should do.

Thank you.

 

Thanks JWK. The plastic is not breathable as far as I am aware. Is it worthwhile lifting the plastic now and letting things progress without this mulch?

 

Same with John there, bit difficult to see but if the yellowing and black patches are between the veins on the leaves it would suggest magnesium defficiency, a feed might help.

A breathable membrane would be much better. The polythene might be good in a normal summer, but this one has been pants so far, not enough rain and cool enough for diseases to develop.

 

Seems i have the same problem with my blue belles growing in bags. Although my other 6 varieties are doing fine although bit worried that my King Edwards have already started to produce flowers when my 2nds have buds but no flower.

 

Thanks for your comments. I will remove the plastic sheet, and lift some of the tubers to see how they are developing. We had some last night from the affected plants, and they were beautiful - white and tasty, although a lot were underdeveloped.

According to the instructions, they should have started to flower by now, but no sign of any buds as yet....

Is there anything I can do to control the slugs living underground and making holes in MY potatoes (how dare they?!)

 

There is something for that but I can't remember the name, beer traps will attract the slugs, might help for now.

 

Maris Baird is one of the earliest spuds you can grow but when we have grown them in the past they have always attracted slugs which seem to love the taste of them so we don't bother growing them any more as the loses were too great and we didn't want to use slug pellets,although we found the little black slugs that did the most damage were the ones that lived a bit deeper in the ground at about the same level as the seed spud was planted...

 

Aye, use slug traps. Nematodes may be worth a look too, though they may work out expensive.