Potato growing 2021

Hi John
Just had a look at bordoux mixture on google - thats a different colour to the stuff I have. The bordoux mixture looks easy enough to make however. I need to get some mixed up for the spuds and used it on the roses last year as well as got some blackspot. Seemed to help. This year one of the Cherry Trees (Lapin) has got shot hole disease. Ive been too busy with work but need to get to it and get the worst affected leaves off it and was thinking of spraying it with the same fungicide.

 

How do you get on with the Setanta John? - I ordered some of those as seed for my father, I don't think he's grown them before but he wanted to give them a try. I take it that its fairly new on the market. The Blue Danubes are good but to eat but not sure how blight resistant they are.

 

Charlton Park Garden Centre were selling them in 2014 Seed Potatoes list 2014

 

Not that new then. I've only got back into growing in the last 4 years since moving house to get a bit of space for gardening. Last year was the first proper year as there's been a lot to do (and still more to do) on the house. We bought the place for the garden space and knew the property was going to take a lot of work to get into some sort of order.

 

I may give them a go next year. I got the Vivaldi to try for baking as my Wife likes baked potatoes. A lot of the baking potatoes from the supermarkets are awful things fit mainly for animal feed in my opinion. I'm not sure how they are going to be but didn't realise they don't store well aparently.

 

On local allotments the 'old boys' thought anything post WW2 was new.

 

Lifted some my Setanta spuds and they are covered with unsightly swollen lenticels, meaning not reliable for long storage.

The Picasso and Kennebec spuds either side of them are completely unaffected.

Rather dissappointed in a blight resistant potato that appears prone to a condition that makes it easier for blight to get into the tubers.

 

Mine have exactly the same, altho not lifted any of this year’s crop yet. I did not know what the spots were, just presumed it was a trait of the variety. Mine stored with no issues whatsoever? Ok we had eaten most of them by about February but do remember peeling some whoppers for Christmas dinner! I think JWK grows Setanta too. He is more experienced growing potatoes than I am but from my few years of growing this variety the skin condition did not inhibit their storing ability.

 

Packs of 5 seed potatoes to sow now and get new spuds at Xmas £2 a pack in-store at Homebase which is much cheaper than some places online charging about a fiver plus several pounds for p&p.

 

This is what (late) blighted plots look like all around me. I cut the tops off my Picasso and Kennebec spuds before it hit, acting upon online reports.

My Setanta blight resistant spuds don't show any sign of blight. All my plants inside polytunnels (spuds and toms) aren't affected. My outdoor tomatoes were sprayed with Bordeaux mixture before it hit and are fine.

But other people's crops look like this, and these pics are of a new allomenteer's plot who, like many, planted up most of their plot with spuds.

 

My Charlottes were lifted as soon as they reached a reasonable size many weeks ago, those who left them to grow on have all been blighted.