Good gracious! Whatever next - I think that idea is an absolute no-no, MG, because of the spores. I don't grow tatties any longer, but blighted tomato stems and leaves get burnt.

i agree with spritzhenry. all my haulms, small potatoes and all my tomato plants and leaves are either burnt or go to waste recycling site.

Certainly do not compost any potato or tomato haulms which have blight on them, but the rest go in with everything else.
I think you are right about the heat though. The spores would be killed in the sort of temperatures reached in a 'professional' heap where the material is kept damp and turned every day.

This is from garden banter another UK garden Q & A site:

Blight overwinters in LIVE plant material - tubers you miss when
harvesting and some weeds - and is spread by the wind in suitable
weather conditions. It is therefore a good idea to eliminate all
potato plants that arise from forgotten tubers, and to watch out
for the relevant conditions (high temperatures and humidity), but
a complete waste of time to worry about what you can compost and
what you can't.

We still wont try it ourselves. We don't compost tomatoes plants either. Perhaps we are being over cautious as blight isn't a problem in this part of Scotland but I'd have to accidentally introduce it!

Anyone reading this article will be mad to not worry about blight. We are in a time of deep financial problems for many families and people are growing their own because they worry about what is sprayed or fed to our food. I read on the following link that blight was one of the diseases investigated for using as a biological weapon before they stopped such programmes. I will not be saving any potato refuse for my own compost heaps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytophthora_infestans

oh no, i'm glad i've just read all your coments, think i might have to start again with my compost bag as i put everything in there!
I just pulled my first batch of potatoes and put all the plants in the bag, then there's all of last year's tomato plants in there : (

Did the plants have blight, Claire? If they didn't your compost should be all right.

not as far as i know! There was one cherry tomato that was the biggest but had the nastiest tasting crop other than that all were fine. Apologies i may have over reacted to when you said you get rid of them at the recycling centre just incase!

Just be careful where you use the compost Claire

I copied this from this link
"e book Ministry of Agriculture Allotment & Garden Guide for August 1945."
When it asks how good your compost heap is I take it they mean how big is it and how well does it heat up. You should be able to feel the heat and you then have to turn it over to allow all of the composting material to be heated and die to make compost. The heat kills pathogens in the compost. I CR the exact minimum size for composting material to be able to heat up but I do know that most of the compost bins and certainly bags are too small to generate that necessary heat. I would err on the safe side and get rid of your haulms.

Those POTATO HAULMS

Every year when the early potatoes have been lifted, the question is asked "What shall I do with my potato tops?" The problem is whether to put them on the compost heap or not. The answer depends on two things, namely, how good is your compost heap and how free from disease are your potato tops?
If you have had an attack of blight, or any other disease that has

affected the potato tops, the answer is simple—gather them up, all of them, and burn them. If your crop has been clean and you have the sort of efficient compost heap that heats up well, there is nothing against chopping up the haulms, with a sharp spade, while they are soft and green, and treating them as any other waste. In a good compost heap they will soon rot down. The main thing about potato haulms is not to leave them lying about.

I don't think our bins get hot enough... we are cool composters

i have a bag my nanna got me, i'm good at putting stuff in it but not so good at turning it, i'm a bit frightened if i put a garden fork or spade in it i'll end up tearing a hole in it :(

Sorry Claire you use this bag for composting?

yeah it's ment to be a compost bag has a pannel at the bottom you can open to take out the compost, i'll take a pic over the weekend and you can have a look.
this is my first year with it at my old house i had a pile at the bottom of the garden, had to move befor i could really get into it tho :(