Read if you grow Potatoes or Tomatoes - BLIGHT 2012

Excellent posting John

 

I've now got blight both in my temporary pop-up greenhouse at home plus one of my tomato patches at the plot and I can't spray as it's tipping down.

Not had a blight alert in ages.

 

Getting them every day now.

 

A thank you to you good folk on GC ....I can't believe i've been so ignorant to 'blight'...i've never come across it before this year thankfully....but i thank you all for the heads up ....and now i know exactly what we're up against

 

I've become completely disillusioned with this service.

I haven't had a single alert for over 2 months, but over that period my outdoor container grown tomatoes, polytunnel tomatoes, greenhouse tomatoes, garden outdoor container grown tomatoes, both patches of plot grown outdoor tomatoes and the few potatoes that didn't rot in the ground have all succumbed to blight. And I haven't even had an alert for the 4 other postcodes I subscribed to either - one each to the North, South, East & West from me.

I sprayed my last remaining unblighted tomato patch with Bordeaux Mixture on Thursday 30th September, just before going away on holiday for several days when there was no sign of blight but I sprayed as a precautionary measure. Looking at them this evening they've now lost 20% of their leaves and loads of the fruits are beyond it.

But what gets me is that when I was getting email blight alerts every day/week and I couldn't spray because it was tipping down with rain every day my tomato plants were completely untouched by blight, but when the alerts stopped the blight steadily started infecting all of of my tomatoes.

 

Sounds like all the blight this year was our fault:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/gardeners-blamed-spreading-potato-blight-000143443--finance.html

 

Be even more our fault when we can't get Bordeaux mixture anymore.

 

Will also be your (amateur gardeners) fault next year ... I predict problems next year as it was so widespread with the wet season this year that there will be lots of volunteer tubers from tiddlers left behind this, and naive gardeners who have mistakenly composted the culms etc. to provide a rich breeding ground next year :(

Bone dry summer next year would help with blight ... and be a nightmare for us lot to have to water everything constantly ...

 

After this year's total failure I'm not bothering with potatoes next year and will be growing loads of parsnips instead, plus Koralik & Ferline (the latter still on 'special' at T&M for 49p/pkt) blight resistant toms.

 

No First Early spuds? Generally out-of-ground and harvested before Blight arrives ?

 

Even those. My First Earlies stayed in their trays for far too long shrivelling away waiting for conditions to improve, but they still rotted in the ground along with all the others when they eventually got planted out. Only about a dozen plants grew out of eighteen 20 foot rows, none of the first earlies showed above ground, and what did got blight. It will take me at least a year to forget about it.

 

Hiya Scrunge.

Dunno if I'd be so hasty to abandon spuds for next year. This year (in my limited experience) has been a stinker, and we would be pretty unlucky to get another year like this, imo. Maybe grow only earlies next year?

 

Although everybody only mentions Bordeaux Mixture for use against blight, what about the other one, Burgundy Mixture?

It's just that my last application of Bordeaux gummed up my pressure sprayer (still needs sorting out), and as Burgundy uses washing soda in lieu of lime it sounds like it might be a better DIY option for those who don't have the EU telling them what they can and can't use.

 

Does that come in a different shaped bottle?