Managing Blight

From this.....

to this!

If you get Blight there is only one way to manage it, cut down all your potato stalks to the ground and the spuds underneath should be fine for a few weeks after.When you are cutting the stalks down keep your eyes peeled. If any of the stalks have begun to rot then the tubers underneath may be infected too, and cutting off the stalks won't stop one rotting lot of spuds from infecting its neighbours.If any of the stalks are mushy, have yellow leaves or look slimy dig out the spuds underneath too. Otherwise all your spuds may rot.

It was with a heavy heart that I cut down all of my potato stalks in the first early bed. Don't get me wrong I'm used to doing this job as I get blight every year without fail. But this time it was different because for the first time I noticed the whole plethora of life living in and under the potato jungle canopy, and it broke my heart to destroy the Eco system of so many small insects.

Moths like to rest in cool undergrowth during the daylight hours

There were ladybirds on the leaves, moths resting in the cool shade underneath, spiders, centipedes, earthworms, all living on the cool spud forest floor. In 10 minutes their nice potato forest was reduced to bare earth! I know it's no use feeling bad about it, blight was spreading too quickly between plants, the weather conditions driving it forwards with no let-up in sight. In a short time the whole bed would have been reduced to a mass of rotting stalks with that terrible rotting blight smell that makes me think of the famine.So-far, fingers and toes crossed, my main crops are unaffected, but the second Earlie's are showing the first signs so they too will be chopped to preserve the crop underneath and act like a fire break in stopping it spreading on further. Another forest ecology to be destroyed. I find it all quite depressing.