Earthing up potatoes.
22 March 2010 10:00:27
No damp warm weather any more,sunshine we need.
Plans for the afternoon yesterday changed a little after spending a few hours in a neighbours garden talking about growing vegetables.It was another great day with weather.Plans for today will be for the tunnel on return from a check up.
Earth up plants when stems are app 20cm tall and preferably do a second earthing up when plants are about 30-45cm high.You can use the soil as a mulching material,but try to pack this a tightly as you can around stems.Blight is caused by spores washing down through the soil.The deeper the tubers are,the less chance there is of viable spores reaching them.Blight love damp warm weather.A porous mulch will not prevent spores from being washed onto the tubers.Should you notice blight [brown blotches on leaves] pick off any first leaves that have brown blotches.The sooner the better.Any of the stalks of blight effected tubers here are destroyed.The spores will keep active in your compost if aloud do so.If not too badly effected you could always bury they in the very center of the heap but also very,very, chancy,as they must decompose in the compost heap to destroy the spores.Here they are always destroyed and annoying doing so,but better be on the safe side.Enough trouble will be caused by them without allowing the spores do more damage the following year.Blight will also effect your tomatoes and unless protected it will pass from potatoes to tom,rapid.Potato blight is caused by the fungus called Phytophthora infestans.