[vron]

Hi, sorry to read that so many lotte holders/vege growers are suffering from both potato/tomato blight.

We to have been hit, the tomato crop will be virtually none exsistent, only the tumbling tom in the hanging baskets have so far evaded it, but its only a matter of time.

If they do survive then they don't have a cat in hells chance of ripenning this weather.

I have a question.

We pulled up our last row of second earlies (Int Kidney) as they had started to show signs of blight. We washed and dried them, soughted out the affect ones to use first (made mashed spuds and then froze it for later use) Carefully soughted the sound ones for storing in hessian sacks.

We then composted the haulms, which we have now have found out we should not have done, heeeeeelp  :cry:  

Do you think we can add either a compost speeder upper to the compost or sulphate of ammonia to help the rotting process and maybe avoid any problems of spreading the spores.

We also have to lift our maincrop (maris piper) as they to are showing early signs of blight, but the haulms from them will be bagged and burnt come Oct.

Advice needed badly, and I know that someone on this forum will be able to help.

I thank you all in advance for any help you can give us.

[shaun]

its not just us home growers its on a bigger scale

http://www.potato.org.uk/department/knowledge_transfer/fight_against_blight/index.html?menu_pos=seed

[vron]

Thanks for your reply Shaun, I know its very wide spread and the effects will ripple all over England.

I feel so dreadful for the farmers and growers both of grains and vegetables, things are going to be so tough for them, this will also affect livestock farmers to.

[clive f]

Chap next to me compost his  say's he has no problem's.Vron don't bag the haulm's they go black and slimey and STINK like hell made my blooming eye's run .    

[welsh boyo]

whats a haulm??
probably a stupid question but i aint got a clue  :oops:

[clive f]

The stalk's and leave's

[WG.]

See haulm in the Glossary of Terms in the Welcome forum  

All please feel free to vote in the poll & to contribute further terms (with or without definitions)

[Annie]

Commiserations,yet again i have returned from a long weekend away to find the last of the potatoes and the outdoor toms. blighted,took out the potato hallums and will do the toms tommorow,then the broad beans where the chocolate spot has gone berserk....what a year!

[vron]

Many thanks for all your replies, we decided to cut down the haulms on the Maris Piper, we did this on tuesday.

We will leave the spuds in the ground for 2 weeks to make sure the blight spores hopefully don't affect the tubers, then we will lift them all and store only the sound ones.

The others will be used as and when, or turned into mash and frozen for future use.

We have unfortunately already put some of the affected haulms on the compost heap, so we  added a lot of lime over the haulms, in the hope it will help them to breakdown quicker without harbouring any more spores.  

If neccessary we shall also apply Sulphate of Ammonia to aid the composting process.

Oh for a little bit of sunny weather, just enough to ripen our crops.

Regards to everyone.

[pookey]

can seed potatoes be kept to plant next year from plants with blight?  All 3 of my varieties have it - maris peer, maris piper and king edwards.  Even my greenhouse tomatoes have it.  

[muntjac]

if thye have blight dump em,,,,,,,,,,,,, dont plant spuds back on that ground for a couple years and heavy heavy lime it  

[Sally A]

I've been preparing ground for next years spuds, but it is only about 4ft away from where next door had his this years crop which was affected by blight.

Should I rethink and move my spuds further away, if so how far?

2 of my greenhouse toms are starting to show signs, so today I'll be shifting them to the unglazed greenhouse (luckily they're in buckets), and giving all my toms a vicious haircut to remove a load of the lower leaves, and look for dodgy leaves/stems/toms etc.

[muntjac]

i would move em the other end the plot if you can ,,i havent had it in years thanks to lucky  

[Annie]

Dug out the picassos today ,2 weeks since the hallums came off,looked ok but there are dodgy ones as they dry.Had a couple for tea and some were going brown inside but looked perfect on the outside so I expect I will have a box of slime by the end of the week.!

[Annie]

have now washed them to get a good look.HAVE BINNED LOADS!!They are now drying in the sun and the75% that look OK at the moment will be checked daily.If it wasn`t for the sun I could get a bit down.Pink fir and rooster  and bonnie to dig out next week.