Preparedness for when

RAS

I am acquiring a greenhouse. I could buy the same for £350-500 new and half that or less on pre-loved web-sites.

Having seen what other plotters have been able to achieve with a similar tool at their disposal, I realised that I really would get far more from the plot if I had one and it would make the house easier to run (not having various plants being raised on all the window sills and cleaning up spilt compost for example).

It will cost no money (although I will buy the ex-owners a thankyou present). It has however cost me 7 hours to de-fenestrate and transport the glass and stack that carefully. I expect it to cost me a similar amount of time to sort out the alsorted crap that currently pins the frame to the ground and then half an hour and some buddies to move it; intact if possible.

What I also get is some new skills - had to learn how to remove the glass and how to work myself into the spaces where I could do the work and renewed confidence because various aches and pains mean I have not done as much physically recently as say 5 years ago.

In the short term it is probably cost neutral but longer term I think it will let me grow much more of my own food and save money that way.

jk0

Some very interesting comments to this post by the Slog, particularly this one:

http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/enough-two-dimensional-black-white-news-already-how-about-some-3-d-technicolor-analysis/#comment-453183

[Deleted User]

mrsmortenharket wrote: »

I quite like the smell of Jeyes fluid!

Be careful if you, or your neighbours, have cats.

Jeyes fluid is poisonous to cats.

[Deleted User]

daz378 wrote: »

bought a water carrier 5ltr from poond land.... seems a bit flimsy... but eh only 1.50

£1-50 from £land :huh:

rebeccalb

Thank you for everyone's lovely comments, they've really made my day. .

Perplexed_Pineapple

Evening all, have been MIA for the last week or two due crazy busy RL but popping in to say minor SHTF moment this evening, went down to the lottie and we have potato blight :eek:. Was getting dark so going back down tomorrow to take the tops off. I guess it's due to the hot humid weather we've had over the last few days.

mrsmortenharket

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Be careful if you, or your neighbours, have cats.

Jeyes fluid is poisonous to cats.

Oh sh/t I had no idea. I've got a cat. As have me neighbours :eek:

Oh my goodness.

I did rinse it away afterwards but obv the smell hangs around.

Thanks bedsit bob.

paidinchickens

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Be careful if you, or your neighbours, have cats.

Jeyes fluid is poisonous to cats.

I had no idea Bob, I have used it (having four dogs) but I also have cats.

It does seem harmful to dogs as well if not used correctly

http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/chemical-alert-after-pet-dog-poisoned-1-5936349

PiC x

GreyQueen

Perplexed_Pineapple wrote: »

Evening all, have been MIA for the last week or two due crazy busy RL but popping in to say minor SHTF moment this evening, went down to the lottie and we have potato blight :eek:. Was getting dark so going back down tomorrow to take the tops off. I guess it's due to the hot humid weather we've had over the last few days.

I'm really sorry to hear that, PP, having had 3 go-rounds with blight in the past 7 years. It's that heart-sink moment.

I dug up my spuds on Friday 11th July and missed the blight, but last weekend, just as I was locking up the gate, a lottie pal from the other end of our site (which is long and skinny) stopped by with a long face - there was blight on the far side. It was the first time in 3 years I hadn't had to deal with blight.

It's entirely possible to save the crop, but it will requiire work. Sorry if you know all this, but it may be of service to someone else reading. You're right about getting the tops off asap. Burn them immediately, if not possible, get them off-site immediately. Some schools of thought then say leave all alone for a couple of weeks and hope any rain doesn't wick the blight spores down into the soil, and then lift.

My school of thought is that the spuds form on the roots above the parental tuber and are often just under or even breaching the ground at this time of year, so highly-likely to get the spores on them. What I have done successfully for 3 times now, is to lift the spuds, allow them to dry out a bit on the surface, brush loose earth off and lay out on a floor (garage? shed?) to watch for spuds which are blighted and start to turn.

If you have to sack them up, you'll need to shoot them out onto the floor every couple of days and pick over them for any spud which looks dodgy. The blight causes affected spuds to rot, the rotten area is colonised by secondary rots, and it's these which spread from tuber to tuber.

On a white-skinned potato variety, you want to look out for a subtle bronzing or shading in patches as the first sign, and put those aside for immedaiate consumption. It's pretty hard to see. The next stage will be for that patch to develop a greyish colour and sink inwards a few mm. Then the rot starts. One rotten spud will contaminate it's neighbours and make a stinky yucky mess.

If you have a spud with signs of blight, cut away the affected part with a good margin. The rest of the spud will seal on the cut area and be OK. Needless to say, you should eat the cut potatoes before any uncut ones, just as you would any you'd pranged or clipped with the fork when digging them up.

If you have blighted potatoes, you will need to examine them every few days to pick out any which are starting to turn. It's tedious, but you will gradually get all the affected ones, and it'll only be a fraction of the crop, although enough to cause their neighbours to rot, if left in contact.

Treat blighted spuds and blighted potato tops as if a bio-hazard, and don't compost them. If you would otherwise be moving onto land which doesn't have blight, such as visiting someone else's garden/ plot, don't do it with your regular footwear in case you track it in. It's a regular problem and one which the plant breeders are constantly striving to erradicate. There is presently no such thing as a blight-proof spud variety, although some are marketed as blight-resistant, such as the ones whose names start 'Sarpo'. I have heard negatives about the Sarpos on terms of flavour and texture from lottie peeps who have grown them, but haven't tried them myself as I favour 'Kestrel'.

Oh, and potato blight and tomato blight are one and the same organism, so if you have both growing, both are in peril. HTH.

Cheapskate

I had the dreaded blight in one bed only last year, and did everything you've just said, GQ, and only lost about 10-15% of my spuds. This year, I had a few surprise plants pop up in the same bed, obviously loners I'd missed before, they seemed ok, but now one plant seems to have it, so its tops are being slashed today. I know you're not supposed to have the same crop twice in one bed, but they grew by themselves, so I just watched to see what would happen! :rotfl: Will def remove every last spud this year, and plant next year's somewhere completely different, probably have to be in bags, as I've used the other 2 spots this year.

A xo