blight advice

yes - with that strange feeling of inevitability - I found unmistakable blight on both spuds and toms this morning. Only one of gardeners delights so far affected, tumbling toms seem OK but I guess it's just a matter of time.
I've sprayed with dithane on the toms but that's not really practical with the spuds - the plants are far too big. What is the best course of action? I have harvested some of the "edzell blue", which are in the ground, but the rest are in bags and I don't think any are ready yet. Should I cut back the foliage immediately or could I wait for the tubers to get a bit bigger?
The tomatoes are really disappointing as I haven't had one ripen yet!
Bah!

 

I'm pretty sure that JWK managed to "control" the blight on his Toms last year with chemicals. Have a search for posts containing "blight" and where the Author was "JWK"

P.S. Or just wait for him to make a grand "What Ho Chaps!" entrance here!

 

Sad news again.. I sprayed my toms yesterday as a preventative.
Its been raining here in the Vale for most of the day with a temperature check of only 15C this morning, so with luck its to cold for the blight.
Nevertheless I am thinking of moving some of my pot toms into the consevatory for ripining and protection. I lost loads last year to the blight and I dont intend to this year.
robert

 

I intend to spray my toms tomorrow, but with all this rain, will it just get washed off again?

 

No, I didn't mean **in** the rain as such, but what of subsequently?

 

Probably important that it doesn't rain for N hours after spraying. but I'm not sure how long "N" is.

N = 6 hours for Roundup / Glyphosate, but that's the only one I remember offhand

 

"spray the undersides of the leaves"

I always find that hard to do. I have tried carrying a bamboo to push the plants this-way-and-that to try to get spray under them, but I don't think I do a good job.

Anyone got any tips?

 

Not really, but I suspect the more industrial the sprayer, the easier to get a good coverage.

 

Well I've chopped off all the foliage from my edzell blue (in the ground), and hopefully that'll stop the spread to the tubers while I munch my way through them.
Oddly, when I checked the spuds in bags, I not only found no tubers at all (just by sticking my hand in and rooting around a bit [no pun intended]), but that the compost was pretty much dust dry. I've been watering with a hose every day (pretty much) but I think the compost must have formed crusts which stopped the water penetrating. Very disappointing. I've stuck the end of the hose in and gave them all a good soaking but probably too late now...

I've been pretty brutal with the toms - removing all leaves with any signs of discolouration, and given them a good dousing with dithane (again, after the rain last night washed them off). Yep, I tried to get the undersides of the leaves but the only way to be certain is to mix up a tank of dithane and dunking the things into it. A technique I am considering...
Fingers crossed.

 

email this afternoon from the blightwatch people warning me of blight in the area.

http://www.blightwatch.co.uk/content/bw-Home.asp

I was already getting a bit worried so I had cut the tops of my potatoes earlier in the morning.

What should I do about my toms that are all in the greenhouse, do I shut the windows or not?