17-06-2009, 09:38 AM
posted to uk.rec.gardening
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Apr 2009
Posts: 1,093
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Harvesting potatoes now --- what to do with foliage (fear of blight)?
Sacha wrote:
On 2009-06-16 22:37:07 +0100, Derek Turner said:
On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:07:42 +0100, Jonathan Campbell wrote:
I suppose earlies harvested before the end of June might normally
escape blight?
Yes. June seldom yields Smith periods. Living, as I now do, in Jersey
with a very changeable maritime climate I think it very unlikely we
will have Smith periods. The general rule seems to be 'if you don't
like the weather don't worry: it will change when the tide turns'.
Sustained high temperature /and/ humidity is rare on a small island.
Thats probably why potatoes and tomatoes have been our biggest
exports. Sacha?
Sea breezes are healthy things that see off overall 'mugginess', I'd
think. Of course, the mild climate of the islands and Jersey's
north-south slope helped with early tomatoes and potatoes back in the
days before refrigerated container shipping, so their chief
competitors were the Cornish with much the same conditions. Daffs and
iris were also a good market at one time, as were freesias grown
under glass and of course, grapes, hence tomato glasshouses being
called vineries to this day. The weather is certainly changeable -
it was colder in Jersey than in Exeter when we arrived on Friday
morning and we put on sweaters - no, not Jerseys. ;-) And then it
became extremely hot about 2 hours later but with some cloud and
showers occasionally and remained hot all week end. And on boarding
the plane, we learned yesterday that Exeter area had big
thunderstorms and lots of rain, something that missed the CIs
altogether. Talking to farming friends in St Helier yesterday, we
were told that this year has been an outstanding success for the
Jersey Royal and that a lot of farmers who had given up for various
semi-political reasons have now bought up land which is going for
frightening sums of money and are going back into growing potatoes,
though not into dairy. We were trying to figure out how many Royals
you'd have to sell to make it worthwhile! BUT another friend who
grows a few vergees of potatoes for his own enjoyment is a great fan
of Dunbar potatoes which do have a fabulous flavour. But he says
they do get blight, even in Jersey, so perhaps the Royal and the
original Jersey Sunrise tom were more resistant? --
Most enjoyable post! Welcome home 
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