Kitchen Garden Forum

Crikey - just had my first Blight warning of a full Smith period and my tomatoes aren't even all planted out yet!
Hopefully this isn't going to be a taste of things to come.

Ditto.

Sat sweltering in a conference centre in London where the air conditioning is struggling with the ambient humidity.

Last night it felt realy like blight. My early potatoes were just poking through so I had to get the spade and quickly cover them with soil.

Yes I got one too! Good job I got active with earthing up on the weekend!

Westi

No warnings here. Good job I've started digging mine. 1.7kg (3lb 10ozs) from the first root.

Me too...first blight warning of the year.

Well done Geoff, i got really late getting mine in this year, with everything that has been going on...but looking forward to that first meal of new potatoes.

No sign of any flowers on mine yet I've two plastic tubs in the pollytunnel lots of growth look really healthy and the bacon and eggs waiting

Yes, there was a blight warning here in Kent, too.

Interesting. The weather was perfect for it, so I rushed down to the plot in the rain and earthed everything up that I could.

There has always been a reference to "early blight" as if this is different to normal blight. Is there any difference to an attack so early in the season?

I must confess that I have never lost a whole crop of potatoes so early on in the season in nearly 20 years of allotment gardening, although have lost some plants.

At this time of year, spacing tends to be very far apart, since the plants aren't mature. Maybe that is the reason blight is not such a big problem.

Any thoughts?

Got a Smith warning this morning.

oh dear - that sounds as if more of us might be getting another one soon. I was going to plant my remaining outdoor tomatoes out today but weather doesn't look very encouraging. May give them another two or three days under cover. Those I planted out earlier are now looking very cramped under their square 5 litre mineral water cloche bottles so will have to expose them permanently to the elements imminently.

Blight notice here in Kent, too, although not in parts of the county closer to London.

I remain dubious. The previous warning turned out not to be accurate, since despite very close conditions over a number of days, blight did not strike.

Similarly, at the moment, we have relatively strong winds, which are what normally protects us from the dreaded blight.

But I am open to being persuaded otherwise

I'm also going to keep my tomato plants indoors, though!

Where do you get the blight warnings from, the last three days have been glorious here and today is looking like another one