2013 Tomato Growing

Exceptional year for wet, and blight, last year though.

Better safe than sorry, and all that, but I'm taking a less worried approach this year on blight ... and Black Spot on Roses. We had dreadful Black Spot last year and, with the benefit of hindsight, I now realise that with THAT amount of wet I should have doubled the rate that I treated the roses. Something to remember for another wet year. We removed every leaf from the plants last Autumn, including all that had fallen on the bed and, TouchWood, have not had any trouble at all this year - but drier of course.

 

Hiya folks.

In an earlier posting I said that some of my outdoor plants were blighted. This might not be the case as I failed to notice that the plants themselves don't seem to be affected, only the fruits. They certainly look blighted, but can they be?

 

Hiya John.

Just to reiterate, the plants themselves are still unaffected. I even have fruits side by side on the same truss, some looking blighted, some not.....

 

I have, yes, although I left it a bit longer than I probably should have. I can't complain though, the blight resistant ones (Ferline and Legend) are still cropping well, and have been totally unaffected. Best year ever, for me. I can't say for sure, but it may well be the case that my DIY shelter made all the difference earlier on when they were planted out. I just wish they had a bit more flavour...

 

So how much is everybody paying for their Bordeaux Mixture? It's £3.69 for a 175g bottle of Vitax in my local garden centre and that makes it only 74p to spray a small poly tunnel crammed full of tomatoes.

And when are the EU banning it?

 

Hiya Scrunge.

It must be pretty soon now, so at that price, might be worth stocking up

Edit : I think I paid around £7 ?

 

Thought they already had, stocked up last year.

 

That DIY stuff only makes 4L

As a 175g bottle of Vitax makes 7.5 litres, buying from ebay isn't as cheap as it may appear.

 

The cheapest Bordeaux Mixture I've seen is £3.49 at Greenfingers, but there's a £4.99 P&P charge as they're no longer doing free P&P with orders over £29.