Kitchen Garden Forum

Just spent the morning pulling up all 18 of my outdoor tomatoes that have been hit by blight over the last three days.

Heartbreaking really as they were all up to their 5th truss and heavily laden.

All of the above plants were growing adjacent to the door into my greenhouse where I am growing a further 8 plants .Unfortunately, I have noticed two of these are showing the first signs of leaf blackening. I have removed these branches and sprayed all plants with copper fungicide. Fingers crossed for the next few days.

The "joys" of gardening eh!

Been up to the allotment today and my so called blight resistent outdoor toms have gone brown and nasty as well Potatoes went a couple of weeks ago, but I had hopes the toms would pull through as the crop looked good.

Too warm, too wet, too humid, too much like perfect fungal disease weather

Still the sweetcorn looks promising and we picked a bowl of the biggest Autumn Bliss raspberries I have ever grown. Just had a bowful with cream mmmmmmmmm

Look on the bright side Mike, you may have caught the greenhouse crop just in time. I've sprayed at that point before and got away with it - fingers crossed for you.

Sue

I hope you made green tomato chutney.....

Sue,

Sorry to hear about your toms and potatoes.

One variety I was growing outdoors was Shirley which, I have read somewhere,is resistant to blight! It aint!

Tigger

I hang my head in shame and have to admit that apart from a few that I have kept to try and ripen(in a bowl with a couple of bananas) all have been destroyed.

Hi Mike,
Shirley is not an outdoor variety so it is a miracle that they have got so far!
JB.

Hi

My outdoor casualties were by the greenhouse door too so I had better get the copper fungicide spray too.

Is that a pretty safe thing to use as the greenhouse has loads of other edible stuff in there from peppers to melons, potatoes, strawberries, lettuce, basil.

Should I spray these/avoid spraying these??

Thanks

David

Don't be ashamed Mike. I picked around 10lb of green tomatoes from my blighted plants and before I had time to do anything they were turning brown. In less than 12 hours many were partially damaged and within 24 hours they were a right off.

Johnboy

You're right of course about the variety Shirley being an indoor one and I have just realised, having read your note and revisited the explantory leaflet that accompanied the seeds, of the somewhat stupid error I have made.

This year I bought my seeds by post from the "Victoriana Nursery Gardens". One of the four varieties I bought was described as 'Tomato 'Shirley's' Discovery(Sweet Supreme 2)

I now realise that the variety was in fact "Discovery" and that "Shirley" is the name of the old biddy who started the Company about 2000 years ago and who is their "figurehead" and who'se name appears on loads of their products!!!!!!!!!!

As my kids have said for years "Dad you'd be dangerous if you had a brain" I plead guilty as charged.

David.

In view of the above, can you excuse me for not offering you advice on whether to spray your crops with Copper Fungicide!!

I had read everybody elses' comments about the arrival of tomato blight and thought myself lucky to have escaped. However, today it has sadly arrived. No signs on any of my leaves, but five fruit affected. Will spray this evening with Dithane but don't know whether I'm too late to save my crop. I notice that others of you mentioned copper fungicide spray. Is this more effective than Dithane or is Dithane a form of copper funcicide? My tomato crop this year is much less impressive than last year but I will still be gutted if I lose it.

The blight I mentioned that affected my outdoor toms has unfortunately now spread "indoors" and I have lost three plants in the greenhouse.

I have also noticed some blackening of leaves on three of the remaining five. It looks as though I shall be eating Sainsbury's toms this Autumn and not my own.

At least the runner beans appear to be doing well and the sweetcorn is swelling nicely.

Primrose

I think that the various sprays that you can buy are only effective at killing off the blight spores as they land on the plants, ie surface only. I think that I am right in saying that once the disease has entered the plant's "blood stream", so to speak, thats it.I cannot comment on which one is best out of Dithane or Copper Fungicide as I have never had to use either before.

Johnboy, You are right, of course, but I've never had any difficulty growing Shirley outdoors. I think this must have something to do with the time i plant them out [first week of June] and maybe also the warmer summers we've been having recently. Maybe furhter north they won't do so well.

I may have been lucky with my tomatoes. The Outdoor Girl plants grown from saved seed have been stripped of their leaves practically, but they are still producing tasty and edible fruit [as well as a few blighty ones, which I burn along with the leaves]. My Potiron ecarlate beef toms are done for, but the Andine Cornue plum toms, though much reduced in foliage, are developing fruit which looks excellent. Olirose, Alicante and Tigerella have not lost much of their foliage to blight and the Gardeners Delight plants have had mixed fortunes but are fruiting quite well, though I'll get fewer of them than I had hoped.

Perhaps there's another factor here: the RHS experts are saying that there's a new variety of blight around. Perhaps I've got that. Or maybe the toms are just suffering from stress, as someone on another forum has suggested.

Keep some of the suckers, and maybe you'll get a late crop.

Good luck
mike

Don't like the sound of "....a new type of blight.."
the one we have is bad enough.

My six remaining plants in the greenhouse are still growing and have reached the roof and I have removed the growing tips. However, each plant is being ravaged severely with blight and have only got two or three leaf branches remaining (all at the top)

Some of the few fruits that are left are actually starting to ripen so I may get to "enjoy" one or two meals from them before they all finally succumb.

Presumably, there is the danger of the spores remaining in the border soil ready to infect next years crop. In addition to replacing all soil over the winter, is there anything else that anyone can recommend please to ensure that next year's crop will not be infected from this years spores?

I remember reading somewhere that disinfecting the soil with Jeyes Fluid would kill a number of soil borne diseases but I really don't know whether it would work with blight. I'm such a softie that I'd be desperately worried that doing this might cause a horrible death to any worms in it.
About three years ago I lost my entire crop of outdoor tomatoes to blight. I returned from holiday and found the border full of brown shrivelled plants and rotting fruit, many of which had fallen onto the soil. I immediately pulled them up and put them in the dustbin because I didn't have anywhere to burn them. The following year I grew beans in the soil, and the year after that returned to growing tomatoes. The tomatoes were absolutely fine and I had one of the best crops ever, so I suspect that weather also influences blight and possibly if the soil is kept healthy and regularly manured, this also influences what happens to our plants.

I remember reading somewhere that disinfecting the soil with Jeyes Fluid would kill a number of soil borne diseases but I really don't know whether it would work with blight. I'm such a softie that I'd be desperately worried that doing this might cause a horrible death to any worms in it.
About three years ago I lost my entire crop of outdoor tomatoes to blight. I returned from holiday and found the border full of brown shrivelled plants and rotting fruit, many of which had fallen onto the soil. I immediately pulled them up and put them in the dustbin because I didn't have anywhere to burn them. The following year I grew beans in the soil, and the year after that returned to growing tomatoes. The tomatoes were absolutely fine and I had one of the best crops ever, so I suspect that weather also influences blight and possibly if the soil is kept healthy and regularly manured, this also influences what happens to our plants.

Using Jeyes Fluid immediatelty sprung to mind when I was typing my original question. I have not used it in the greenhouse for a few years as I was concerned as to its damaging side effects on the soil life.

Judging from other "Topics", the problems with blight are widespread this year and I suspect many articles will be written in gardening magazines etc over the next few weeks/months. It will be interesting to learn what the "experts" suggest.