Help! RIP tomato plants

[HaveYouSeenHerLately]

My beautiful tomato plants have turned brown and are rapidly dying.
This has occurred in the last 48hrs.

Is it due to some kind of fungal blight?

Prior to this they were thriving and full of fruit. I was given two plants by a friend (surplus) and stuck them in the flower bed as I has no other space left. They've been fed with miracle-gro'd at fortnightly intervals as per instructions and were tolerating the feed happily.

Any advice appreciated

[AdamLambsbreath]

Could be tomato blight. It's particularly likely when the weather's been warm and damp - like the last week or so.

There's nothing you can do I'm afraid. You need to make sure not to compost the plants or any fruit, gather them up and dispose of them elsewhere.

Sorry!

[HaveYouSeenHerLately]

Thank you! It wouldn't have occurred to me to separate them from the compost. I suppose that means I can't make green tomato chutney from them? Not all of the fruits have succumbed yet.

[dreamingofsun]

strip the fruit off quickly, if its not infected yet you can use it - or i have. if you are very quick and strip any dodgy leaves off i think its possible to save the plant, but i think u've left it too late

[AdamLambsbreath]

No problem

The blight's not poisonous to people: you can use any non-damaged fruit, and just cut the brown bits off any that are save-able. I've done this. It makes the best of a bad situation!

It's always a good idea to separate out anything diseased from your compost, unless you know your heap gets hot enough to kill nasties. I tend to take mine to the local council recycling centre, where it's composted. The municipal compost heaps are so big that they get very hot and the compost's effectively sterilised.

[HaveYouSeenHerLately]

Thank you for all your help!