This year I think we were very lucky as far as blight was concerned, being a very dry overall growing season blight did not strike as early as it usually does (I had me best ever out door crop of tomatoes as well)
What this means to me is that you were very lucky being able to plant so late, get a good crop and not suffer blight. I would not plan on being able to do this next year.
There is no point in trying for succession in spuds (other than maybe over a few weeks) as they will 'keep' in the ground and do store fairly well in hessian sacks in a cool dry dark place. I'm slowly getting through this years crop and should have enough to last until probably March.
Fair point, we didn't see any early blight until Sept.
My plot neighbour (the annoying one from one of my early posts) left his potatoes and haulms sitting rotting in the ground until only last week! So presumably that means the whole
site is full of blight spores
Can blight survive the winter in spore form? I always thought it was good practice to get rid of the foliage as soon as there's a problem?
Question on 'keeping' potatoes... I'm confused on how long you can keep first and second earlies? I've read lots of places that they only keep a couple of weeks in the fridge... (I'm flaunting that advice by over a month!)
How long can you keep them in the ground?
I pulled all mine up in early September as soon as the blight started on other people's plots, and have them in hessian sacks and cardboard veg boxes.... and am actually still using them! They don't have that brand new taste anymore but still very tasty...
I'm planning on growing an OBSCENE amount of potatoes next year, and would be nice to know of a way to keep new potatoes for as long as possible!!
Its a new plot and they were so good for breaking up the soil on the little patch I grew them, i'll be scaling up next year... (scaling waaay up!) ... My friends and neighbours will be getting free spuds for weeks!