BLIGHT - just a bit of sympathy please

[Dobby]

oohh no sorry
whent to the plot last night and had a look at our spud and oohh nooooo the first sinne of blight
got to wate for the plumber then take MrsD Mini in to the garadge to see how much and when he can fix it.
Then get the 2 beds of spuds up
hopefully they will store if not
then I will be doing a lot of pealling and blanching

[vegnut]

Just want to remind all you grapes who are concerned about blight and blight resistant potatoes, that the Sarpo family are not the only varieties available. Two of the most poopular organically grown potatoes, Sante and Lady Balfour also show good resistance.

Oh so true sewer rat. And thanks for the reminder . It's easy to forget the names when there are so many spuds out there

[Mrs Dobby]

We harvested 2 beds of spuds today, 1 bed of roosters that had just started showing the first signs of blight, and one of another variety, harvest was very POOR!! Only about 30lb from 20 tubers in each bed, really disappointing!

[sewer rat]

Join Blightwatch and register your postcode - they will send you text alerts for blight warnings in your locale and then you get home , log on to their website and get the full gen.

[Comfreyfan]

T Lady - how were the spuds? Hope you got a decent crop.

It was my Pink Fir Apple that got hit, but I dug some today and it's not too bad - a bit spotty, but it's only skin deep and not a lot of spuds, but enough to keep me happy

[T-lady]

Hey Comfreyfan

Thanks for asking - I dug up my first row of earlies yesterday and they seem absolutely fine. Thing is, they've been in the ground a bit long and they're HUGE! Size of proper baking spuds :-)

Glad your Pink Fir Apples got away with it - they're a lovely spud.


Looks like part of the main crop may have got blight too so they'll have their foliage removed tonight. Incidentally, for those who've been interested, the Sarpos (Mira and the other one) both seem absolutely fine.

[Twinkle]

My Aran Pilot and Charlottes all got foliage blight but I lopped off and burnt the leaves and the potatoes seem fine

grew Cara as a maincrop as I wanted lots of baking potatoes for over winter - they're supposed to be fairly resistant and so far look OK.

I grew Sarpo Mira last year when I lived in the UK - it was fine, but didn't mash well at all - it went kind of "gluey" so I won't grow it again (I love my mash)

Been ideal blight conditions here in wet West Ireland so I did expect it.... just a case of making the best.
My tomatoes are in the polytunnel and not downwind of any spuds so fingers crossed they come through.

[gojiberry]

All my charlotte were up before the blight hit here, and it was a brilliant crop. One haulm gave me 36 good sized potatoes, which is the best I have ever grown. The pink fir were lifted just as blight started to appear and it was a reasonably good crop. Saro mira are still growing with no sign of blight and the cara and valour are still going strong with no sign of blight. However the sarpo axona which I thought was blight resistant is showing signs and will have to be lifted this week. All round I have had a good potato year even with the blight.

Ian