Describe a land that is foul and evil smelling. Where green plants yellow and the beautiful fruit rots and becomes a malodorous mushy mess. No, I'm not writing about "The Wheel of Time" (book 14 not coming out until 2012, grrrr). I'm talking about my own personal potato famine. The unusually cool, wet, spring has spread the dreaded fungus, phytophthora, to my yukon gold potatoes. A late frost killed the top growth of these plants but they came right back. Then black spots appeared on the leaves. This is my first year growing potatoes so at first I thought it was more damage from frost. But nooo... some of the plants started to yellow. I pulled one of the offending specimens and the potatoes were still good. We had fried potatoes. Man were they yummy.
So I decided to wait for the other plants to go ahead and keel over in order to maximize my harvest. Bad girl, no, no, no! I pulled a particularly sorry plant and the stinky, slimy, disgusting mess was amazing. Truly blighted instead of truly scrumptious. (Thank you Robert Jordan, I now know what "the blight" is all about.) Next, I tried a fungicide... all to no avail. Insert sigh of utter despair here. My new plan is to pull the plants in between beginning to yellow and rotten slimy stinky mess. Good Plan! I pulled 3 plants today and harvested the potatoes. They are quite lovely. The green parts are going into the green waste. I don't want to infect my compost with blight. Looks like salad and fried potatoes for lunch. Muy delicioso, Oishi desu,
hao chyr, yum.
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