Kitchen Garden Forum

Hello all - I am Sue from Worcestershire. I love my garden, which is a wild and woolly woodland garden, with lots of flowers (and even more weeds)

I also have a large veg area, and am pretty well self sufficient in fruit and veg, and also produce enough to support a large amount of wildlife (!?!) ie mice are eating the strawberries, pigeons are eating the peas, slugs are eating the asparagus - etc etc

I keep English Cuckoo Marans which give me more than enough eggs and chicken to eat, plus the occasional pigs sheep etc.

I came to the board looking for answers on how to dispose of pernicious perennial weeds and (the inevitable) blighted potato haulms I know the ideal is to burn both, but this garden produces such quantities of the things that if I try to dry before burning I just seem to end up with yet another mouldering heap of rubbish.

My current thinking is can I dissolve them in a large tank of water. I am fairly certain this would work with the weeds, but would the blight spores from the potatoes survive the treatment.

Any input gratefully received
Sue

Hi Sue, welcome to the forum, your garden sounds a nice size, and you're doing well to be self sufficient in veg. The tank sounds like a good idea for your weeds, probably safest to burn the potato haulms if they have blight, though others might have better ideas. Is there blight around already, or was the question in case? Here in the south east rainfall has been very low so we might escape blight this year.

Evening Sue, and a very warm welcome to the forum from me too.

I'm not sure about the blighted potato tops either. I would definately burn them myself.

Always try to clear any blighted tops or potatoes away as soon as possible, this will help stop the spread of the disease.

Welcome Sue. You will find us by and large a friendly bunch.