Gardeners’ Forum: “potatoes”
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Posted by Judy Nolan on Tuesday, April 24, 2001 9:34 am ADTLast year I grew potatoes in a community plot. Almost every one had their potatoes hit by a blight of some kind. Within two weeks all of the stalks withered and died. My tomatoes were also hit by this blight. What is the best type of potatoe to grow (I am partial to red or pink)?
re: potatoes
Posted by Howard Harvey on Wednesday, April 25, 2001 7:19 pm ADTYou should have checked out with a garden centre to see if they knew what was bothering the potatoes. Potatoes are usually pretty tough cookies!! I like YUKON GOLD myself and NORLAND RED for a change. I trust that the potatoes were not ready for harvesting!! At that point, the tops do die back.
re: potatoes
Posted by Mike Legere on Thursday, April 26, 2001 9:46 pm ADTJudy, I had the same problem here in northern Nova Scotia due to the cool damp weather conditions we experienced last summer. It hit my tomatoes as well. It came late in the summer but had enough time to wipe out all my tomatoes. The potatoes were more or less developed by the time the plants were struck so we had our winters supply secured. I had two varieties of potatoes planted, one was a "blue type" and the other a great variety of white potato which was developed to be resistant to potato bugs.(yeah genetically engineered but I haven't grown another head yet) It really worked! Unfortunately neither potato was resistant to blight. I read that a copper based fungicide solution is available and effective on this blight. Check out the Veseys catalogue, they may carry it or your local hardware store. It would simply be mixed up in your watering can and applied like a liquid fertilizer would. If the weather stays warm this summer that would be the easy and natural solution. We can only hope as I Really missed those toasted tomato sandwhiches last year. Also, being a community plot the fungal spores which cause the blight could be introduced from the garden tools of people sharing the plot who are working in other infected plots. It's pretty hard to control in that kind of situation. Good luck. M.Legere in Nova Scotia
re: potatoes
Posted by Judy Nolan on Saturday, April 28, 2001 12:20 pm ADTThanks for the information.The community plot is only allowing organic controls, so is this copper spray organic?
