Novice gardener needs HELP!

[Jules]

I am worried by 'Blight' - in as much I am not sure what I am looking for. Recently most of my tomato plants went black and moudly looking so I threw them all on the bonfire. What a waste!!! Three in a barrel near the house are fine and producing lovely toms! (Gardeners Delight)
Now I keep reading about potato blight and my maincrop (Pink Fir Apple) are looking a bit sad, yellowing leaves with brown spots on but nothing like the tomatoes were. (They weren't planted particularly close to each other).
Should I dig them all up and check them and then store them or is it OK to leave them where they are?
Many thanks for all assistance from all of you more-experienced gardeners!!!

[amanda-from-grantham]

Jules, you have my sympathy! We've been
veggie growing for 5 years and we'd never seen blight and we didn't recognise it for what it was until we started digging up slimy potatoes. That then accounted for our brown and mouldy looking toms. Toms & spuds (& peppers & aubergines!) are all the same family and 'get blight'. Our greenhouse stuff (toms, pepps & aubies are fine) but the spuds and toms outside are almost 100% destroyed If you get blight in one part of your area outside I gather that you will get it in the rest (there's 100m or more between our spuds and toms) coz it's airborne, so it gets whole areas, and if like us novices you don't recognise it you can't spray at the first signs like all those other knowledgable folk out there. As for recognising it, go to blightwatch.co.uk for identification. If it is blight then whether your Pink Fir will survive I dunno, my equally 'old fashioned' Belle de Fontenay all went but we found that out only a fortnight or so ago, so if your Pink Fir are only just looking sad then maybe it's normal haulm dieback which is what we thought our blight was to begin with. Oh, and if you try to store blighted spuds they rot, so can't be stored, so my research has told me, we're still on that learning curve ourselves. So much for our self-sufficiency in spuds this season. From one novice gardener to another. Keep smiling. (PS sorry for the long reply )

[WigBag]

For blight look for a pale/whitish sort of halo on the back off the infected leaf.

The old Dr H. expert series (vegetable) show several none blight diseases as well.

[Jules]

Amanda-from-Grantham thanks very much for your response. I have looked at lots of 'photos' and 'diagrams' online but it is really difficult to tell - I guess thats where experience matters!!
My husband dug one plant up and the potatoes seem fine so I think - weather permitting!! - we will try and get them all up this weekend and then just store the very best!
Such a nuisance - these pests - then if self sufficiency was totally plain sailing, everyone would do it!!!
I'm still smiling - though the weather today is not helping!!!

[Chantal]

Jules, be careful about the potato storage. I dug mine up a couple of weeks ago, stored the good ones in sacks and then read another thread on here warning about them rotting. Having gone through one sack in the past week, washing and sorting, I've found at least a dozen previously healthy looking spuds where blighted and very nasty looking. Do not assume that one that looks healthy today will be so tomorrow.

Don't lose heart though, this is NOT a normal year.

I'm using/cooking, mashing and freezing/selling to work colleagues all my potatoes and doing it as soon as possible before I lose even more.

[Jules]

Thanks Chantal - I will keep a close eye on any we store and, like you, will probably conjure up amazing things to do with potatoes - in the cookery/freezer department!!
Does mash freeze well??

[amanda-from-grantham]

Yes, mash freezes well - just make sure you dry it out thoroughly before doing so otherwise you get watery mash. Small news freeze after 3 mins blanching, or prepare chips, cook without browning, drain well, cool and freeze; and when you come to use them defrost sufficiently so there aren't ice crystals on them and then brown up in really hot oil. Or, of course, make fishcakes, rissoles and such like. Happy cooking!