Read if you grow Potatoes or Tomatoes - BLIGHT 2012

Nightmare!

 

Turn my back for 4 days and my spuds are gonners

 

Double nightmare!!

 

Yeah, it really is. Out of all the crops I grow, it's the spuds I really look forward to...

 

Just dug up my 'blighters'....handfull of charlottes and a trug full of Red Duke of Yorks...enough for a couple or so meals so not as bad as expected...having a bonfire tonight to get rid of the 'evils'....that'll upset the neighbours but right now i don't give a damn......

 

I think I may have blight on my spuds as well. I've been growing Charlotte and Casablanca in bags and in the ground. The ones in bags have been doing much better than the ones in the ground, but one of the plants in a bag has got brown mottling on the leaves. Other than that its actually looks healthy. I wish I could say the same about the ones in the ground, they are very small, yellowing leaves and straggly looking. Think they'll come up this week and see if anything is underneath them.

 

I live on the south coast and have just had to dig up all my outdoor roma tomatoes due to blight. Still got to explain to him indoors (the chef) that no tomatoes to freeze for cooking through the winter. Pototoes also affected although the potatoes that I have dug up look ok.
i have been growing outdoor toms for years and this is the first year affected, anyone else on south coast having problems? Tina

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner Tina

Yep, all of mine have gone down, bad damp conditions for it this year i'm afraid.

 

It's not looking good for potatoes here on the island either. A friend told me on Friday that a farming friend of hers as lost his whole potato crop to blight. Tough days ahead I think.

 

Argh!

Growing some grafted toms in my greenhouse, have been really impressed with the crop and how strongly the plants have grown, but recently noticed a few black patches on the (very thick) stems higher up on a few of the plants. The plants haven't been wet and I don't think it's been windy in the greenhouse, plus we used all new compost so I've no idea a) how it happened and b) what to do.

This is only my second year of growing toms- last year 2 outdoor plants died really quickly and now from googling I realise it was blight... but they weren't in my greenhouse :(

I've only just heard about this thing we're supposed to spray, so nothing has been protected. Is it a brand name, or do I get any one with copper? And is it ok to spray the fruit as well as foliage?

So to make the best of it now... What would you do?

1. Pull out all the tom plants even those which don't have black patches (and cry)?
2. One those that have black patches, pull out the entire plant even if only a little bit of stem higher up has gone black? (& spray the others?)
3. Chop off the black bits but keep the rest of the plant (& spray)
4. Don't chop anything off, spray, and hope for the best??

Thanks in advance
Heather

 

Thanks JWK, really useful!

So I sprayed my toms with Bordeaux Mixture about two weeks ago, and it definitely seems to have slowed down the spread of the black patches on the stems.

I've been keeping an eye on it (secretly hoping it's not blight!) and nothing much has been going on, but lately I noticed some of the toms were going weird rather than ripe so I went in and chopped out some of the stems with black patches as well as removing the weird toms. I sprayed again too.

I've not noticed any black spots on leaves. Some leaves are going crispy and brown, but I wondered if that was just them being scorched through the glass? The black patches on the stems are all quite high on the plants, and started out where two stems were rubbing against each other- so I originally thought it was just damp or condensation from the greenhouse.

I've attached some pics below of the bits I've cut out, they've not changed in about 4 weeks, two unsprayed, two sprayed- does it look like blight? And if so am I just being really lucky that it's not spreading that fast?

Slightly different question- if the tops of my toms are still producing flowers, is it too late in the season for these flowers to become toms? I thought I'd stopped them but obviously not and I don't have the heart to cut off flowers! I'm too hopeful... Big error it seems!

Thanks,
Heather