Got potato blight and facing maybe losing a big part of my harvest

Yesterday, I found potato blight on my potatoes, one of my most important crops. I may be able to save some of it. Losing a well-growing harvest to disease or pests is awful, but also very common.

Let's talk about resilience.

There is a reason farmers in affluent countries are spraying their fields with all kinds of poisons. There are lots of critters and disease that can destroy what we wish to eat. There is a chemical fighting most of them. But these chemicals come with a huge cost to us and nature.

So if we don't want to use poisons, what can we do? Crop rotation is one tool: diseases and pests are surprisingly specialised, and if you switch where you grow different vegetables each year, they cannot make establish themselves.

You can try physically protecting your prescious legumes: netting, cloches, fencing against rabbits or good old soapwater to hide the tantalising smell of cabbage that draws in cabbageworms. Having frogs, birds and salamanders feast on the critters reduces their numbers nicely.

Having you plants in good health makes them more resistant, just as with people. Good soil, ideal location with enough sun and not too much wind and plentiful watering helps.

Aphids can be blasted away with a strong shower just as governments do with unwanted protesters. Potato blight can be averted by quickly cutting off everything above ground, letting the potatoes in the ground for a couple of weeks and then digging them up.

But often there is little you can do. And there comes resilience!

Plant lots of different plants. A monoculture is always vulnerable. But if you grow 60 different plants, it is highly unlikely that every single onf of them will be eatrn by the pest specialising in them.

Also, always strive to grow more than you need. I seem to manage to lose a third of my crop every year, in varying ways and to different pests or disease. So just accept it, unless you really really need to lose weight.

Of course losing a part of your crop is a bummer. But accepting the fact that it is quite normal makes you happier as you don't blame yourself. It helps in planning how much you cultivate so that you'll have enogh (albeit not always of thr sorts you planned).Stress is a pest too.

Good points and ideas here.  Crop rotation is especially important for potatoes, even more so than other plants.

Good news. Tomatoes got infected, and a part of them are rotting. But a surprising amount ripen and can be picked before the rot sets in!