Tomato Blight

buxtonrabbitgreen

Well I still have 12 plants that haven't got blight (yet) I keep going out every day and saying to them "come on you can do it, get ripe instead of blight" The kids think I'm barking. lol.
I brought some geen ones in (off the blighted ones) a couple of weeks ago and put them in a box with a ripe banana. They were starting to ripen. Then they went missing. My oh had put them in the freezer not checking what they were !!!!!!!

Sazbo

sazza42 wrote: »

I've been growing tomatoes for about 4 years now & have never had a problem with blight. However, I've just come indoors from picking all of my ripe tomatoes as most of my plants seem to be infected. I'm growing two types of bush tomatoes, one type seems to have it (red alert I think it's called) & the other kind (a small yellow type) doesn't seem to have it at all. I'm hoping the yellow ones are OK as they aren't as ripe as the other ones and taste far better!

Sorry to hear this sazza, but interestingly, mine were a bush variety of yellow cherries and although blight set in about 3 weeks ago now (while we were away for a week:rolleyes:), and I was devastated thinking I'd lose everything, it's been slow enough to develop that i'll end up getting pretty much most of the tomatoes ripe before the blight gets them - which has pleased me no end I picked them a bit early and let them ripen on the windowsill. Perhaps the yellow toms are slightly more resistant (although I must stress that mine weren't advertised as such...) Sounds like yours will ok - good luck!

Sx

buxtonrabbitgreen

Me again. about 12 plants without blight now have quite a few tomatoes on. One is even orange. But it is getting cold at night here in the Midlands though it has been warm and sunny all week. Would I be best to bring them all in and ripen them inside now? or is it safe to leave them out a bit longer? Thanks.

Primrose

buxton - I normally keep a diary note of when I pick my last tomatoes from the plants and bring them indoors to ripen. Last year it was the third week in September but I'm a little further south than you, so probably not a bad idea for you to pick them fairly soon. I always try and leave them on the plants as long as possible because I find they do tend to start drying out and the skins start to wrinkle a little once they're detached from the plant. The other alternative, which I've found helps keep them in good condition is to remove the entire trusses and keep the ends dipped in a little water so that they're still absorbing moisture. But you really need a lot of shallow bowls for this so it's not very practical for large amounts of tomatoes. For the past week I've had two trusses of green cherry tomatoes resting in a jug of water on my kitchen window sill which got accidentally pulled off the stalks before they could ripen and the skins are still shiny and glossy and showing no signs of moisture loss.

buxtonrabbitgreen

Thanks Primrose. I think I will chance a few more days whilst the sun is shining. Then into the shoe box, as that worked well last year. My windowsills are full of pots of jam so is every horizontal space actually.

Sally_Davies

OK that's it, after reading this thread I'm going to the dark side after not using chemicals in the garden since 1981... it's the bordeaux mixture for me chums. Went and got some from the garden centre, bonus, well cheap at £2.50, so MS side satisfied even if green credentials dented! Late blight, let them come! This year have abandoned the delicious (but very blight-susceptible in my garden) Gardener's Delight, and now going for Tigerella and some Italian beef tomato job from the wonderful MoreVeg website. Plus some Black Russian that I think is a bit blight-tolerant - last year I actually managed to eat some despite it being a huge year for blight here. They are beautiful and very yummy.

conradmum

The only tomatoes I grow outside are Ferline, which are blight resistant.

Primrose

I've sowed a number of tomato varieties this Spring, including Red &Yellow tumblers as in the last two years I found that these varieties didn't seem quite so vulnerable to blight.
I'm growing Ferline again too, and as an experiment, last year I saved some Ferline seeds which I've also sowed. . I know they're and F1 variety and as such the characteristics of saved seed from F1 plants may not come true, but I wanted to check out whether their blight resistance is any different, even if other characteristics are not the same.
I grow about 30 plants & rely heavily on our tomato crop to freeze for soups and purees, so although I prefer to garden organically, I have to be pragmatic and now spray against blight from July if weather conditions look conducive. Having once departed on holiday where I left a fine crop of tomatoes all on the verge of being ready to crop to return to a long row of totally brown plants and rotting fruit, I'm never going that route again. It is just too dispiriting for all the effort put in.

conradmum

Primrose wrote: »

I've sowed a number of tomato varieties this Spring, including Red &Yellow tumblers as in the last two years I found that these varieties didn't seem quite so vulnerable to blight.
I'm growing Ferline again too, and as an experiment, last year I saved some Ferline seeds which I've also sowed. . I know they're and F1 variety and as such the characteristics of saved seed from F1 plants may not come true, but I wanted to check out whether their blight resistance is any different, even if other characteristics are not the same.
I grow about 30 plants & rely heavily on our tomato crop to freeze for soups and purees, so although I prefer to garden organically, I have to be pragmatic and now spray against blight from July if weather conditions look conducive. Having once departed on holiday where I left a fine crop of tomatoes all on the verge of being ready to crop to return to a long row of totally brown plants and rotting fruit, I'm never going that route again. It is just too dispiriting for all the effort put in.

I save my seed from Ferline too and it does seem to come true. However I only grow that variety outside and none of my neighbours grow tomatoes so that probably helps a bit.

Primrose

conradmum - thanks for your observation about how saved Ferline seed behaves because I was wondering about that. I only tried growing Ferline for the first time last year and was really pleased with the way they performed.
I seem to be the only person around here who grows my own tomatoes so hopefully that reduces my susceptibility to blight. I think allotment growers must be very vulnerable to the risk where so many plants are grown in close proximity to each other.