Rummaging through the gardens on Saturday morning we noticed a row of potatoes had become completely wilted and blackened and figued we'd been struck by every potato farmer's worst fear. Resident garden expert, Mike, confirmed that we were looking at blight and we began pulling out the plants and shoving them in garbage bags to clear the garden of further contamination (apparently blight can be even more devastating to tomatoes... and we'd have a lot to lose if it spread to our fruitful plants). Luckily, at this stage the potatoes are still fine to harvest and eat so we set about digging up our yummie tubers... just be sure to get them before the plant turns to mush and travels to the potato itself!
Here's what blight looks:
Here's what wikipedia had to say about blight:The spores of this water mold overwinter on infected tubers, particularly those that are left in the ground after the previous year's harvest, in cull piles, soil or infected volunteer plants and are spread rapidly in warm and wet conditions. This can have devastating effects by destroying entire crops.
Spores develop on the leaves, spreading through the crop when temperatures are above 10 °C (50 °F) and humidity is over 75% for 2 days or more. Rain can wash spores into the soil where they infect young tubers, or else spores can be blown in from miles away by the wind.
So we probably have all that rain we were getting in July and the extreme heat & humidity now showing itself here in the city. Luckily we were still able to harvest our potatoes... and lets hope this doesnt spread to the other plots!
--The Landless Gardeners
