Blight/potatoes/tomatoes

[bikermike]

Is it a bad idea to plant tomatoes in the next bed to potatoes?

The spuds are dieing back. The leaves have black dots on them, so i'm not sure its blight, but given the general risk of blight, how fast/certain is the spread between the two?

[nickdub]

Best bet is to pick off the dead potato leaves and dispose of them in a way which won't encourage any spreading of spores - may not help but it might.

[Nicos]

It's airborne Mike, so I'd say it's inevitable.
From what I recall it takes a couple of weeks to show signs once the plant has been infected.
As Mike suggests, remove affected potato leaves, that might slow things down.

With all this warm and humid weather it could of course be a different fungus.....which is better news I suppose

[Penellype]

I find once potato leaves (and tomato leaves) start to die back they can go very spotty. This isn't necessarily blight, it just seems to be part of the natural process of dying down.

If you have blight in your area it won't matter whether you plant your tomatoes next to your potatoes or at the other end of the plot - they will get the blight anyway if its there.

Removing dead leaves from any plant is good practise as dead and decaying leaves attract slugs.