blight??

[lynda66]

i'm not sure if i have blight, or if it's normal, i decided to leave the potatoes in, basically too bloody lazy to dig up 10p sized potatoes, and thought i'd wait a bit longer, anyway, just been out, and although the top of the plants still look healthy, the lower leaves and stems have started to rot, there was loads of fruit flies on the stems and leaves,

the stems and leaves have started to go brown a bit mushy, and there was some white mould ...... anyway, i decided enough is enough, and chopped all the stems off. I'm presuming its cos they had all fallen over and were laying on damp soil, with not much air circulation.

i have looked at blight piccies, but really don't know if it is, and i looked at the blight map and there don't seem to be any cases round here.

so the question is, will they continue to swell without leaves, or is that it now?? do i have to dig them up straight away?? problem is i'm supposed to be on a train at 3 oclock to go away for a week or so ....... what to do??

[SlugLobber]

Have you harvested any more spuds aside from the diddy ones? I ask as I have been harvesting as and when. The end of my first middles (didn't do earlies - is there such a thing as middles?!?) was last week, when the stems finally keeled over. I harvested what was left and since there was no disease, I recycled the compost. I wonder if your plant is at the end of its natural life. You could try using the little taters as seed spuds? Or eat em. There were little ones in my final harvest, which I cooked and ate.

Can't answer the swelling question!

[Kristen]

Doesn't sound like blight to me

[Alice]

If your potatoes have no leaves Lynda they won't get any bigger now, but they will be allright in the ground til you come back your holliday. Hope you have a good time.

[Demeter]

Sounds like the plants just rotted from being too wet.
But personally I wouldn't use the small ones as seed potatoes, just in case!
Hoep you have a good trip

[Two_Sheds]

Not blight.
Not blight.
Not blight.

Just normal end-of-potato falling-overness. Mine are all (except late maincrops) falling over, turning yellow/brown and looking poorly. It's normal, they're just dying of old age

[lynda66]

lol, thanks 2 sheds it's when you read stuff, you think is it? but i had really in my head put it down to them dying back, and lying on damp soil, and being next to the compost bin, and being invaded by fruit flies .......was just the brown patches with the mould underneath, that was a bit worrying, anyway, the stems have gone, cos having a bed full of slime was disgusting. and i was worried about it affecting my courgettes and pumpkins in the mext bed, i'm sure the mould spores could have spread across the soil.

anyway, am gonna leave them buried till i get home, have decided to go today instead.