Urgent help please! Veg patch gone wrong!

This is the first year that I have ever done some serious gardening, and I am quite new to it. However, one of my first ideas was to plant a veg patch, in which I put a few tomato plants(maybe 4 or 5) and a courgette plant, along with two pepper plants. At the time it was fantastic, and up until now it had all been going great. About a month ago all the plants went through a big growth spurt, and it was ok then, and I was very happy because I expected lots of good veg! But as time went on I started to realise it was all going wrong, because the tomato and courgette plants were expanding rapidly. The courgette plant was ok because it trails along the floor, so it doesn't stop any other plants, but the tomatoes are out of control. They have completely dwarfed the peppers and have grown way way beyond what I estimated. I went out today and I was almost horrified, because I saw that my tomatoes were getting ruined. I looked closer and saw underneath all the foliage, one of the plants looked almost dead. I'm not sure what disease it has, but the stems have purple patches and the fruits are getting ruined. The leaves are also quite withered. I was quite upset at this, and I've realised that my plants are too crowded. I cannot take them out or move them because they are too established now, I don't want to get rid of them either. I've worked really hard on these plants and I really don't want them to be ruined. Any help or solutions would be really appreciated.

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner

Sounds like you've got Blight i'm afraid

You could try spraying with Bordeaux Mixture, but it will only slow it down now, not get rid of it.

Stay with us and we'll talk you thru next years season, with regards to when to spray, which tomatoes are grown as cordons etc.

Don't let it put you off trying again

 

Thanks a lot for for your advice! Would you have any solutions for overcrowding? Can I trim/prune the plants or will that have a bad effect. If I should how much should I trim them down? Will the blight effect the fruits of my plant? Sorry for so many questions I'm just very worried

 

It will i'm afraid,



The Tomatoes won't keep for very long, use them up as quick as you can.

You can prune them to let the light at the fruits, they won't mind that, and take any flowers off now as they won't get to set any more fruit at this time of year.

 

Ok thanks so much, I'm off to do some serious pruning. I was reluctant to remove flowers at first, because I thought "the more fruit the better" but now I realise that any fruits that start growing now will die. Thanks again!

 

No worries, we'm got more to help you with later

 

At this time of year it's always a race for outdoor tomatoes to ripen before they get blight particularly if you live in a damper part of the country. We're near Bristol and grow the majority of our tomatoes in the grreenhouse which gives some protection against blight as well as speeding up the ripening process.

Tomatoes are very vigorous and generally need side shoots pinching out to limit growth and encourage fruit production (not all varieties). We have grown some tomatoes outdoors this year and it has been very difficult to keep them under control. Once they start producing side shoots the task grows exponentially until eventually you just give up.

Once you've got blight there's not much you can do unfortunately. Plants need to be thrown away and not composted. You might be able to harvest unripe tomatoes and ripen them in a warm place indoors but keep an eye on them to make sure they don't show signs of blight.

Don't be discouraged. We've probably all gone through the same experience at some stage.

 

Thanks, I've just gone and chopped the tomatoes. At first I thought I could treat them and slow down the blight, however as I looked closer the damage was a lot worse than I thought.nin the end I had to chop whole big bushes, hanging with heavy fruit that had been infected by blight. It was actually really disheartening, because I had put a lot of work into those tomatoes, and they got ruined, more than half my tomato crop is gone. It's a shame the ones that got infected were the most promising plants.
I've noticed that some plants which I grew from tomato seeds from a store brought tomato are unaffected. Would you have any quick/home remedies for preventing the blight from spreading?

 

Just spraying with Bordeaux mixture, and burn all affected toms and potatoes.

We'll sign you up to Blightwatch tomorrow

 

Outdoor tomatoes are a bit of a gamble crop. They start to fruit relatively late in the season because you can't plant them out until a) frosts have finished and ideally b) night temperatures stay above 10C. That shortens the growing season, and Tomatoes start shutting up shop as the light levels and day length fall (round about now) although they will continue ripening until first frost / Autumn.

Then there is blight. Significant risk for most of the country in most years (although I might be overstating it a bit!)

Perhaps not the ideal crop for a newcomer because, for me, there is nothing worse than crop failure for a Newbie due to the high risk that it puts them off, and I would like them to grow successfully for enough years that they gain skill to see them through times of trouble ...

I suggest you grow what you like to eat, only grow the things/varieties with best flavour (so you knock spots off supermarket veg and thus grow to love what you grow to eat ) and perhaps things that are high cost in the shops (like Runner beans, high yield, expensive in shops because of manual labour cost of picking) so that you can also feel virtuous and persuade yourself that you are saving money (it probably won't be true, but we can all kid ourselves on such matters and raise our own moral in the process )