Blight

[Chantal]

Blight hit my tomatoes yesterday. Only two affected but I've picked the lot and washed them in disinfectant as suggested on another thread (which I couldn't find).

How's everyone else doing around the country? I know Jerry was clobbered (Sussex) some time ago.

[Garlic_Guy]

Yes, my outdoor toms have had blight for the last week.

[JacquieB]

Mine too - well at least starting to show signs. I dug up all the outside plants yesterday and removed all the toms - loads (and loads) of green tomatoes - hopefully they're not infected and will ripen.

We can't have bonfires yet on our plots - what are you doing with the infected haulms?

[Chantal]

I was going to black bag them and put them in my bin. I don't know what else to do with them as they're far too fresh to burn at the moment.

[Primrose]

Oh heck!! My tomato vines all looked OK when I dug them up today and this year for the first time I'm experimenting, chopping them up and putting them in a trench so they can rot down over the winter instead of being composted. Next year climbing beans will be growing on top of them. What will happen to the soil if the blight had just arrived on them before doing this and I hadn't realised?

[Garlic_Guy]

Next year climbing beans will be growing on top of them. What will happen to the soil if the blight had just arrived on them before doing this and I hadn't realised?

JB and others can probably give definitive advice on this, but I think the view is that blight spores are already all around us. Whilst it's best not to deliberately introduce more of them, there's probably plenty already present most years, waiting for the right conditions to infect our plants.

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Primrose, don't fret, everything is going to be alright, i promise.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

Theres no fool like an old fool.

[deadlyart]

Blight hit my tomatoes yesterday. Only two affected but I've picked the lot and washed them in disinfectant as suggested on another thread (which I couldn't find).

How's everyone else doing around the country? I know Jerry was clobbered (Sussex) some time ago.

I lost my entire crop to blight this year I was gutted first time I had grown decent plants to ho hum better luck next year.

[Chantal]

That's an awful shame Could you not save anything?

As I said, I disinfected mine when I picked them a week ago, but I now have one or two of them that have gone brown. I would say the onset has definitely been retarted but it's still happening. The good thing is that at least 50 went red during the week with no blight. The rest I must now deal with quickly. Green tomato chutney on the boil tonight then.

[Piglet]

I came home fron France 3 weeks ago and it had totalled my king edwards and outdoor toms. Never mind

[Jenny Green]

Mine are still blight free. When I've grown other varieties they were all affected by blight long before now, but now I grow Ferline I find they don't seem to get blight at all. They crop until the first frosts.

[Tigger]

No blight here either. Sorry.

[vivie veg]

Ferline and Gardeners Delight in the polytunnel are still cropping wonderfully and untouched by blight. Polytunnel is still well ventilated even at night, although I might start closing it up completely at nights now.

I dug out all of the Legend tomatoes 2 weeks back as they just became too tangled and impossible to manage (they are a bush variety and needed more space then I had allowed them )

Outdoor toms (Legends) have struggled all summer with the draught and been attacked by the crows when any showed signs of ripening. These have now come down with blight.

[Chantal]

My greenhouse and patio tomatoes are still blight free; I forgot to mention that.

[sue-the-recycler]

Hiya
My outdoor toms were spectacular this summer - way more than I could eat - friends groaned when they saw me coming down their drive with carrier bags full to give away. The blight struck a couple of weeks ago BUT on a patch of ground where the chickens had been for a few months several tom plants grew 'wild' from seeds that must have come out of the chicken poo (even they were getting fed up of tomatoes) These plants grew stronger and healthier than any seedling I tended and planted out with no additional water, feed or attention and they were untouched by the blight and croped as well as the pampered ones. The same happended with the pumkins - the 'wild' seed from the compost grew to twice the size of the tended patch, produced the biggest fruit and didnt get mildew. Think I'll let the garden look after itself next year!!