Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: parsley on March 26, 2013, 14:06
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Apparently last year our site had very bad potato blight which resulted in poor crops for just about everyone. I'm not a potato lover personally but my mum and dad want some ;) just wondering if it's ok to plant potatoes after blight in the soil or if bags/boxes would be better
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It's fine to plant in the soil, but avoid where they were planted last year, if you can find that out. You might get some of last year's crop poking their noses up- those should be dug up and thrown out. Blight spores need living material to survive on, and don't usually like cold so are likely not to have made it through the winter.
There's some more info here: http://www.allotment-garden.org/vegetable/potato/potato-blight.php (http://www.allotment-garden.org/vegetable/potato/potato-blight.php)
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Blight is air borne and is not carried in the soil, other than live plant material, which is why it's important not to leave "volunteer" potatoes in when harvesting.
If you practice good plot hygiene and rotate your crops, there's no greater risk then following a year in which you did not get blight.
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Brilliant thanks :) I have been coming across lots of veg that wasn't harvested and that's gone in the chimnea with the couch grass roots today. I think I'll do a couple of bags just to make sure I've got them all out, they seem rather spread out
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when I got my plot last year, potatoes were the first plant I learned to recognise - they were everywhere!
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Hahahahaha they do seem to breed! Not very pleasant to pick up either even with gloves on