Potatoes by Starlight

As we're away for the weekend, and leaving straight from work tomorrow, we had to get organized tonight, which involved checking that nothing needed picking or harvesting from the vegetable garden before we went.

It was relatively successful, to start with: a good handful of courgettes, another of peas, and a few runner beans (only just starting to crop). One or two cauliflowers will probably be ready next week.

Then disaster struck. We realised that the maincrop potatoes—mainly the Golden Wonder—have been hit by blight. Not too seriously, but definitely. The Druid were asymptomatic, but a lot of Golden Wonder foliage was showing the brown spots, and collapsing. Unfortunately, this was about 8 o'clock, and light was failing, but there was nothing for it: the potatoes had to come up. If left until we're back home, then we could be left with no crop, or un-storable tubers.

So, with the aid of a torch each, we've lifted all the potatoes. It's probably only a week before we'd intended to do so anyway, but I'd rather expected to do it in the light. Daylight, I mean: it's almost (August 29^th) a new moon, so there was only a bit of starlight and twilight to guide us.

Still; there appears to be approximately 50kg of Druid, and about 25kg of Golden Wonder. At this moment, I strongly doubt we'll grow Golden Wonder again: it's more floury than we like, and the russeted skin isn't a favourite. Also, the yield is a little disappointing—no better than the earlies, and it's taken up space for two months longer. In better news, though, the Druid seems excellent. We experimented with two row spacings, and the bigger spacing appears to have been worth doing. Twice the spacing, but the yield of those six plants is roughly half the total from all twenty. They also seem to have good skins, and there are some monster tubers; the foliage was also strong and tall, although it needed nets to restrain it to the beds. A likely 2012 choice, I think.

A late night, though: we'll wash them and check them over next week.