Preparing for Winter V

Primrose

Picked a load of blighted tomatoes from our outdoor plants today so will somehow have to find room in freezer to process all the ripe ones tomorrow to avoid losing them and pick the remaining unripe  ones to wash them and ripen them indoors to try and save them. 

I HATE it when you get to this harvesting point in the season and this wretched disease strikes.  Surprisingly haven't had any blight warnings for ages despite the humid weather and wonder if the national alert system is no longer operating?  Anybody else received one recently?.

Lucy5781

Changing the kids sheets today I discovered their car blankets hidden in with all their pillows and toys!!
We've recently changed cars and Daddy left them where they could take advantage of them (3 & 5yr olds!)

So, they'll be going through the wash (DD has managed to get chocolate on hers) and put back into the new car!

Fiona236

Been out to stock up on some tins tomatoes, cooking sauce, pks of rice, custard, tinned fruit... put in our "corona shop " in back room pantry.

Skip dived some new wood for stray cats winter box,  was a lucky find!

Must sort our clothes out next,although last 2days been red hot! 

Jellytotts

Primrose said:

Picked a load of blighted tomatoes from our outdoor plants today so will somehow have to find room in freezer to process all the ripe ones tomorrow to avoid losing them and pick the remaining unripe  ones to wash them and ripen them indoors to try and save them. 

I HATE it when you get to this harvesting point in the season and this wretched disease strikes.  Surprisingly haven't had any blight warnings for ages despite the humid weather and wonder if the national alert system is no longer operating?  Anybody else received one recently?.

Lost all 40 tomato plants to blight earlier in the season, it's been a huge issue country wide this year.  I follow some allotment pages on Instagram from across the country and everyone is having a hard year.  I wouldn't be eating the fruits from a blighted plant, the disease gets right inside them.

30 degrees here yesterday and it's thick sea fog this morning and muggy. I want autumn back!

We have a solar panel inspection today, they were installed a year ago and have done brilliantly so can't see they'll need to do anything but as it's a free check, they are more than welcome to come poke around.

Off to try and find some decent insulated stainless steel travel mugs today that don't cost the earth.  We've had plastic innards ones but they make the drinks taste funny even though we've tried sterilising/soaking/dishwasher/washing by hand, we regularly take drinks out on drives/walks so they will get a lot of use but I just balk at paying so much for them.

Primrose

Jellytots. Thwt must have been a huge blow.  We have about 25 plants.

Time, I think to start washing and packing away all my summer clothes apart from a couple kept out for warmer days.   The freezer inventories have been brought up to date so we can better menu plan but the priority  now is eating our surplus tomatoes and green beans while they,re still fresh as freezers now crammed full. 

Autumn is a strange time for surplus crops isn't it.  In January you,d give your right arm for a sun ripe tomato freshly picked from a plant instead of those tasteless supermarket ones or some crisp snappy green beans but in September you can start to feel overwhelmed if you grow your own. 

  Makes you wonder how they coped in the Middle Ages when they had none of our modern food preservation techniques.  Preparing for winter must have been a far more difficult task  and I  imagine a lot of food was wasted or went rotten because they had fewer ways of preserving it.  Diets must have been very boring. 

Primrose

Jellytots. I just found this on the internet while seeking advice on tomato blight.  Think  I,m going to risk trusting t my own judgement in which tomatoes look oK to cook down and preserve.  I,ve done this in previous blight years and so far have not had anything go wrong. I do err on the side of caution though! 

The question, “Are blight infected tomatoes edible?” cannot be answered by a simple yes or no. It really depends on how infected the fruit is and your own personal standards. If the plant itself seems to be infected, but the fruit as yet shows no signs, the fruit is safe to eat. Be sure to wash it well with soap and water or dip it in a 10 percent bleach solution (1 part bleach to 9 parts water) and then wash. It is possible that the fruit has already been contaminated and is carrying spores on the surface; it just hasn’t progressed to a visual yet, especially if the weather has been wet.

Read more at Gardening Know How: Are Blight Infected Tomatoes Edible? https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/tomato/blight-infected-tomatoes.htm

Jellytotts

Primrose said:

Jellytots. I just found this on the internet while seeking advice on tomato blight.  Think  I,m going to risk trusting t my own judgement in which tomatoes look oK to cook down and preserve.  I,ve done this in previous blight years and so far have not had anything go wrong. I do err on the side of caution though! 

The question, “Are blight infected tomatoes edible?” cannot be answered by a simple yes or no. It really depends on how infected the fruit is and your own personal standards. If the plant itself seems to be infected, but the fruit as yet shows no signs, the fruit is safe to eat. Be sure to wash it well with soap and water or dip it in a 10 percent bleach solution (1 part bleach to 9 parts water) and then wash. It is possible that the fruit has already been contaminated and is carrying spores on the surface; it just hasn’t progressed to a visual yet, especially if the weather has been wet.

Read more at Gardening Know How: Are Blight Infected Tomatoes Edible? https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/tomato/blight-infected-tomatoes.htm

Great to know! Mine were completely manky over night so didn't risk it. Think I'll be swapping to blight resistant varieties next season.

-taff

You could try rigging some kind of munt frame with a cover to stop the spores next year. I didn't really find much of a difference in the blight resistant ones, I just grow in a greenhouse now, don't get it in there..

I used to make green tomato chutney with any blighted ones I had if the fruit looked clean, it was fine. I wouldn't leave them to ripen though, they'll be black before you know it...

DaysofQuiet

My tomato plants got blight this year. I picked off the green fruits and put them in a basket with a banana. And they all ripened without getting blight.....

greenbee

@-taff - I got blight in the greenhouse this year