Top tips for blight-free potatoes, onions, garlic and shallots

Leary’s Organic Seeds explain their organic approach to cultivation, and provide their top tips for enjoying blight-free potatoes and alliums.

Last year, Leary’s Organic Seeds introduced totally blight-resistant potatoes for the first time to gardeners throughout the UK. As it turned out, there was an epidemic of this disease in much of the UK, especially in the south west. On the trial plot at Leary’s farm the blight-resistant varieties stood out in vibrant green while the other types were quickly affected – spuds displayed black patches before whole plants died off. The ground looked like a patchwork of green and black (see photo). The resistant varieties went on to produce good yields with sizable tubers, while the affected ones gave up smaller crops with some rotted tubers, making them unsuitable for storing into the winter.

It is worth knowing that commercial harvests of potatoes, onions, shallots and garlic are sprayed up to 15 times over the growing period with a cocktail of chemicals to control weeds, aphids, blight on spuds, and mildew on alliums. To avoid eating this treated produce, grow vegetables in a garden or allotment, as this is a natural environment that you can control.

With most spring-planted crops you should mulch the soil heavily in the autumn with well-rotted manure or compost, and let the worms pull it into the earth over the winter. This will also keep the ground covered and reduce any leaching of nutrients. At planting time you just need to lightly fork the ground over to get a decent tilth when it’s dry enough. This will provide a good soil structure and an adequate amount of nutrients to get the crop off to a good start.

For more advice, and to view a range of products, go to organicpotatoes.co.uk

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