Blight strikes

[Mike Vogel]

I've looked in vain for the old blight thread, so I'm starting a new one. Today, after 3 bouts of rainfall over the past 10 days and colder weather, I went to cover my tomatoes. The six Roma bush plum plants were looking very blighty, although some of the fruits seemed healthy enough. We picked all of these and then I simply cut down and bagged all the blight-ridden stems and fruits. I'm not sure what to do with them now, as we can't light fires; I'd like to find an old-fashioned furnace somewhere.

Oddly, all my other tomato plants, cordon indeterminates, look fine; Tigerella and Alicante from T&M and Hildares from Lidl and a T&M Cherry variety. Do you think I'm going to be lucky, or will those get it in the next week or so?

The unripe fruits are going to be frozen and then made into green tomato and apple chutney. I'll cut off any blighty bits on them before they go into the freezer.

[oldherbaceous]

Morning Mike, the blight is now with us too, and funnily enough it was the Roma tomatoes it hit first.

Everybody had lifted all their potatoes before it arrived, and it was nearly the end of the season for outdoor tomatoes, so not really a problem this year.

[Nature's Babe]

My consoluto tomatoes succombed first and very rapidly, just the awful damp wet cold weather, but my greenhouse ones were fine and my golden sunrise and real seed large red toms gave a good crop before finally succumbing. Next year I will grow more in the greenhouse, I have two now.
Also am going to try a horsetail wash for my plants if I can find some, as it doesn't grow in my garden.

[The Mouse]

Regarding Roma, I remember someone on the forum saying that they were going to stop growing them because they were always the first to get blight!

My own three Roma plants - the first time I have ever grown them - are in my little greenhouse along with four Sungold, and at this moment they are still blight-free! (There should be a crossed-fingers emoticon! ).

Outside, I have five Sungold. These have been showing some blight on the leaves for the past couple of weeks. This weekend, there are the first signs of blight on some fruits. Personally, I don't think that is bad-going. Up until last year, any of my outdoor tomatoes which got blight would go from perfectly healthy to virtually dead within a week to ten days!!! I am hoping that this year will be like last year: despite the appearance of blight in August, it seemed mild and did not kill the plants. I was able to continue harvesting tomatoes until the cold weather finally killed them.

[Nature's Babe]

Lets keep our fingers crossed for next year, we must be due for a good summer soon !

[Chantal]

[quote="The Mouse"]Regarding Roma, I remember someone on the forum saying that they were going to stop growing them because they were always the first to get blight!

That was me

I think the reason is because they are bush tomatoes and thus have lots of foliage all over the place so no air gets in there compared to the cordons.

[Primrose]

I seem to be the only person in our immediate neighbourhood who is growing tomatoes and wonder whether this improved my chances of avoiding blight this year (although I did spray a couple of times).

I've just pulled all my tomato haulms up now. There's no sign of blight on them so as my compost bin is overflowing I'm planning to chop them up and dig them into the border where I'll be growing beans and tomatoes next year (unless somebody on here has a genuine reason why this isn't a sensible thing to do). I did this last year., only removing the odd leaf here and then which had blight. The haulms all rotted down very quickly mixed in with the soil and this year's tomato plants were all healthy.