Tomato Blight

buxtonrabbitgreen

Now the tomatoes at the other end of the garden have got it too. And I had such high hopes fotr these tomatoes. I don't think I am going to get any after all the nurturing in cut off milk bottle greenhouses from seeds and it seems ages ago I started too.

dboswell

cut the infected leaves off. consider picking fruit to ripen on a window sill or even for green tomato recipes.

misskool

I'm playing a game of blight roulette with some of my tomatoes. Took all the leaves off but it already went to the stem so left it there as most of the trusses were turning. Some have gone red so picked those and the blight hasn't spread to the ones turning. Fingers crossed will them off by the middle of next week or will be pulling them all out.

buxtonrabbitgreen

If I pick the green tomatoes to ripen indoors will the fruit be ok to eat then?. Will take off the leaves. They were fine yesterday. I am so dissapointed. thanks all.

Little_Mama

Well I've taken about 200 green tomatoes off 20+ plants now and have lost about a quarter, about the same turned into lovely red fruits which I have slow roasted (and have survived to tell the tale) and the rest are on the turn on the windowsills of my conservatory. Those that don't turn at all will become chutney.
Good luck with yours.
LM

MunnyBoiler

During the last 2 years, I lost most of my tomato crop to blight. This year I've been spraying my greenhouse tom plants with bordeaux mixture and, touch wood, not a bit of blight & lots of ripe toms.

I did have some tom plants outside, which were spare and I left upsprayed & I've got rid of these this week as they were infected by blight, so the bordeaux mixture is really worth trying in the future

Primrose

If you pick tomatoes especially green tomatoes from blighted plants, give them a good wash. It may help remove any blight spores which may have arrived on the plant and give them a better chance of surviving.

Primrose

Even if you like to be an organic gardener, I think it really pays to spray your tomatoes against blight if you have a reasonable quantity of plants as it's such a waste of your time and effort to tend them all season and then lose the whole crop. And so disappointing too. Try growing Ferline next year which is a blight resistant variety. See my separate post about where to get the cheapest seeds for this variety.

buxtonrabbitgreen

Thanks Primrose. I am writing down bordeaux mixture and ferline tomatoes for next year. munnyboiler (like the user name I hope you are not coming after this munny though lol)what is this bordeaux mixture please? is it some sort of readily available spray?

misskool

buxtonrabbitgreen wrote: »

Thanks Primrose. I am writing down bordeaux mixture and ferline tomatoes for next year. munnyboiler (like the user name I hope you are not coming after this munny though lol)what is this bordeaux mixture please? is it some sort of readily available spray?

It's a mixture of lime and copper and you can buy it from garden centres and the like. You make up a solution and spray it. It's "organic" according to the Soil Association, as it's on their list of permitted chemicals but apprently copper stays in the ground and can leech into the water table.

Blackjack_Davy

MunnyBoiler wrote: »

During the last 2 years, I lost most of my tomato crop to blight. This year I've been spraying my greenhouse tom plants with bordeaux mixture and, touch wood, not a bit of blight & lots of ripe toms.

I did have some tom plants outside, which were spare and I left upsprayed & I've got rid of these this week as they were infected by blight, so the bordeaux mixture is really worth trying in the future

You got blight on your greenhouse toms? The spores are spread by rain splashes, so long as the plants are kept dry there shouldn't be any problems with blight, I've never had a problem with greenhouse toms I just water them at the roots.