Monday 16 July 2007

Blighted

Today I had a go at rescuing the last of the Ratte plants, devastated by blight. The crop was ruined, Ratte is an older variety, very susceptible to all sorts of diseases and the first variety to suffer when the spores arrived this year.

blighted

Hardly anything to save, the shallow rooted tubers were as badly affected as the foliage, a smelly slimy mess. I had the Winston potatoes a couple of days ago. They were o.k in the main but the actual potatoes are not as delicious eating as the Ratte should have been nor as generally useful as the Stroma or the Ambo. Ambo will be the last potato plants to harvest, hopefully not too badly affected in the tubers although the top growth is nearly all destroyed. If it doesn't rain too much I'll start on them tomorrow.

I also took up the last few remaining tomato plants, no hope of saving them and no crop to speak of. This is positively the worst year for blight we have ever known, even in bad years before it has been much later in the year before the plants have succumbed so totally.

In their place I have planted a row of french beans which should provide a crop in 6-8 weeks time, I hope.

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