Wow, right on par with when I started noticing it last year (June 17th 2023). Last year the yellowing took over and killed the plants, but still got a very decent harvest.
So far it's more advanced on the north patch, but it's starting in the south patch too.
(Haven't noticed it at GA yet.)
Wow! Much better yield than last year!
Pot 1 (the first one to die off, had blight): Nice-sized black pot. Had 3 x grocery store white potatoes. Yield = 2 pounds.
Pot 2 (the second one to die off, had blight: Nice-sized black pot. Had 3 x grocery store white potatoes. Yield = 2 pounds, 9 ounces.
Way better than last year, when the same pots were giving like 0.5 to 0.75 pounds per pot.
Some of the potatoes in the bottom third of pot 1 were all mushy / not much left of them -- I tossed those obviously. I think it may have been from poor drainage. Pot 2 didn't seem to have that though.
Quite a few more potato plants still to be harvested from other pots and the ground (and the allotment)...
At least I'm pretty sure it's a slower progression than last year. It just seems like by this time last year a lot of the leaves had fallen off. Granted, this year a new thing is wrong too, which is the curled leaves on a lot of them.
Que sera, sera... The plants overall still look good but I know it's just a matter of time.
Wow, over the last week or so the tomato plants took a huge downturn, from being gorgeous and healthy to now about 80% shrivelled and drying up. There are still several tomatoes of various greens and oranges, hopefully they won't be affected but even if so, it was a huge harvest overall.
Interestingly, the Jasper cherry tomato still looks mostly great, just those ongoing yellow/diseases leaves scattered throughout but certainly looking much healthier now than the other plants.
Emptied the last 2 containers along the fence, which were in full shade, and their plants had fully died a while ago from blight.
The black pot had 4 seed potatoes and yielded 0.5 pounds.
The big terracotta-coloured plastic pot had 3 seed potatoes and yielded 0.75 pounds. The bottom third of the pot was soaking wet -- bad drainage and zero potatoes down there. Might have had more yield if it had had better drainage?
So far this makes a total of 4 pounds of potatoes for the $27 of seed potatoes. The last patch is by the a/c (where I had put the runtiest ones) -- those plants are still quite green (though blighty), so won't harvest them yet.
Emptied the first of the three containers along the fence, which were in full shade. This container's plants are fully brown/dried/disappeared, so figured it was time.
At first I thought there were zero potatoes, but it turns out they potatoes were all in the lower ~third of the container.
So, a non-impressive 0.19 pound of potatoes per seed potato... Better than 0.0, but, yikes!
The blight might have been a factor for sure, since the yield in the north bed was low too.
Will see what the next two shade containers bring, later on once their plants are 100% dead too.
... and that's from $27 worth of seed potatoes!! Compared to ~$5 at the store for a 1.5 pound bag of the nice small potatoes... d'oh.
There are still the 3 pots of potatoes, plus a small area next to the a/c where I had put the runtiest seed potatoes, so maybe a smidge more to come...
On the bright side, the potatoes themselves look fine (though definitely small, even for fingerlings), so at least there is *some* harvest.
Next year I'll look for a blight-resistant variety. (Avoid waxy, because they aren't good for mashing.)
The main bed in the northwest corner is collapsing inward. The pots along the fence are looking sparse. Both are losing leaves. The late planting of runs in the a/c bed isn't collapsing yet but has the same leaf yellowing/spotting.
Will see what the harvest looks like eventually...
Decided the yellow/splotchy leaves mean the potato plants have early blight. Mostly the main patch in the NW corner. The pots in the shade's leaves are yellow but not seeing splotches. The newest patch by the a/c look good so far.
While examing the blight, noticed a bunch of tiny yellow insects on the underside of the leaves. I assume these are aphids.
Anyway, will let all this be and see what happens.
