POTATO BLIGHT -- TOMATO BLIGHT -- MILK 1: 2 June 2003
JK's e-mail about pear scab and gooseberry sawfly (see the link at the foot of the page) raises the matter of preventive spraying, an activity which head gardener R J Harris begins to undertake in blight-threatening June in respect of his prized and botanically-related potato and tomato crops.
His chosen anti-blight medium is unusual, and could not be more organic or lower in cost.
"Milk," he itemises, and he continues, "mix one part with ten parts of water, and be sure to use the supermarket's best, the full-cream type.
"This is not because the potatoes and the tomatoes are choosy in their tastes.
"The full-cream product contains the most fat, and it is the fat that makes the solution stick to the plants' leaves when it is sprayed on them."
He urges: "Prevention is better than cure, so get in there first. Do not wait for the blight to arrive. Spray as from the very start of June, and keep it going once per week until the tops die back or the fruit is picked.
"Get the milk solution on top of and underneath the leaves, potatoes and tomatoes alike."
The quality of milk that Mr Harris used during his apprentice days, in the 50s of the 1900s, is no longer available to him.
"As a lad I sat on a three-legged stool, milked the cow and straight away used what I got on the haulms and the vines.
"There was nothing like it -- not least because it also cost next to nothing."
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