BLIGHT?? Urgent help for novice gardener

[TheSpottedZebra]

Apols for drama of thread title.

So, it's my 1st proper growing season and I am obsessed. I've grown tomatoes before, but never had blight, but I think it has just struck.

Is this blight? See attached pics. It's v v damp here, has been for weeks, although it's quite cold too.

If it is blight - what do I do? Pick everything from just affected plant, or all my tomato plants?
NB these are my home plants, I also have an allotment full of toms 1/4 mile away, on which some people had blight yesterday at the other end. I need to go there and attend to poorly plants too, don't I?

Needy bump

Awwww, dammit Zebs it's either late blight or some kind of wilt (fusarium?). Can you post a picture of the lower leaves? These are usually the first place you see blight - leaves go sort of spotted at the edges then go black, whereas with wilts the veins then leaves go yellow. Are the fruits OK, or do they have brown patches?

If you suspect it is blight, I would get the tomatoes you have off any affected plants. Don't eat any that are brown, but the others should be OK and you can ripen in a bag with a banana. Get rid of the leaves and stems - don't compost it, ideally burn it! I'd wash down any kit they've been in contact with using Jeyes fluid and if you've got them in soil, don't plant potatoes or tomatoes in that patch next year.

I would have a good look at the other apparently healthy plants too. If it's blight, it's so contagious that it's rare for just one to get it and others not to be affected. And the decline is dramatic and quick so you do want to take action fast if you see it spreading. If you have any potatoes, keep a weather watch on those too, and get rid of affected foliage straight away.

Shove ! Thanks for reply. As you know, I'm really proud of my toms!

I've taken most of the lower leaves off already, and the stem thing is he 1st obvious sign. Just taken 2 more pics of the plant - a Black Cherry. It's peeing it down at the mo, so everything is wet. From your description it's blight not wilt as things are darkened rather than yellowed.

The good thing I guess is that it hasn't, or doesn't seem to, have spread to the fruits. Also, I have no spuds (apart from a few volunteers at the plot), as I only did 1st earlies.

The bad side is that I have 7 plants in the bad patch, 3 in hanging baskets, and another 15 or so at other end of garden to attend to, in the pouring rain! Er, and more at allotment. I am such a twat that I have asked my mum to have the kids this evening (a treat for them all!) so that I can attend to my round red babies.

They are all in pots - the tomatoes at home. But in the soil at the allotment.
Ought I to chuck he compost too? We have green bin collection I can use. I was actually going to ask the question of what do I do with used compost, I was hopi g I could use it as a mulch. But not if it's diseased!

Yes, definitely, definitely get rid of the compost. At the allotment, where they are in the ground, give it a really good dig over and don't plant potatoes or tomatoes there next year.

At least it's happened really late - frost seems only around the corner here! So you've had a good summer out of them.

Thanks again for reply, Shove. And you're right, it is towards the end of the summer, the light is dwindling and it's getting parky!

So, i picked/pulled up the tomatoes at this end of the garden, in the pouring rain. Then I went to the allotment yesterday and did the same. Actually I left a few plants -the ones that are meant to be blight resistant (Losetto and Fandango)as a sort of experiment. I ran out of carrier bags for the tomatoes, I was using all sorts of carriers. Now it's still raining and I am washing and weighing tomatoes and trying to sort ripe from unripe. And I'm cooking a load up now. And I still have the ones at the end of the garden to pick. I have a lot of tomatoes. I will update with exactly how many, as I know you're gagging to find out.

I need to try and get some to ripen, but I suspect I'll need to find things to do with green ones. But not chutney, as I still have last year's and the year before in the cupboard. Fried green tomatoes, I've always wanted to try that, so if not now, then when?

The blight spores don't continue to exist in either dead plant material or in compost. You can just put your used compost and the plant material into the compost bin and it will be fine.

Ooh, really Doreen ? As I have a lot of tomato pot compost.

Actually I wanted to use it as mulch on top of cardboard, on top of the allotment beds over winter... Would that work if I sieved the roots out?

Sorry - in haste - Doreen is right, blight can't survive composting but fusarium can. So only compost if you're sure it's blight! (It does look like it)

Posting this naughtily from a meeting

It's definitely blight I'm afraid - thanks to your description, Google image, and all the hours that I've spent looking at tomatoes today and yesterday, I'm now positive! plus at the allotment, there were quite a few potatoes and some tomatoes that were very very blighted. But I was the only fool there in the rain.

Do people tend to try and salvage what produce they can after blight, or are people more laissez-faire and see it as a sacrifice to the gods of weather? I ask as here was blight on the plots of even those people who are down the allotment every day, rain or shine, picking stuff for their dinner.

Only, I'm about 1/2 way through picking over and washing my tomatoes, and I'm at 16kg already. And I've run out of receptacles.

Shove is your meeting less interesting then my blighted tomatoes?

It most DEFINITELY was more interesting, particularly as the "meeting" was more or less a monologue zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!

I tried to salvage what I could when I got it straight away, just like you! (I think this is the advantage to what you are doing- 16 kg is bloody impressive and it does go to the fruits if you're not quick). Mine was on an over-optimistic late sowing of potatoes, so I didn't get much. BTW, just so you don't feel too bad at the death of your beloved armpit plants: in my entire tomato crop, I have a grand total 5 ripe tomatoes to date. 5! I did black cherry and gardeners' delight IN THE GREENHOUSE! My garden has been bloody cold this summer.

I was a bit shocked that a lot of people seemed to leave blighty stuff just sitting there. Maybe I am wrong about this, but I thought it spread quite quickly and put other sites at risk so I felt kind of obliged to leap in asap and deal with it??! Perhaps this is overkill or silly tho - it probably is as surely if there isn't concerted action together it's a bit pointless??

Next year, I am growing blight-resistant potatoes. I got away with it this year - but only just!!

Hello spotted - oh dear, you were so proud ( rightly) of those tomatoes. Can you get down to the greengrocers and get a load of free cardboard boxes? If the actual fruit are blight free, you at least have a chance of storing them to let them ripen naturally. Two years ago, I laid all my green cherry tomatoes, still on the stalks, in a box and covered them with a layer of newspaper, put them in my cool spare bedroom. They mostly ripened, a bit at a time, and I just picked out any 'iffy' quickly - but 16kg! I have a recipe for tomato ketchup for the red ones - would you like it?

I was was so proud. I was >< that close to gloating.
Well, the last laugh is on me as I have spent all day plucking tomatoes from snipped stems, and washing them, and cooking some of them. I've not made a dent in the tomato mountain however.

The final tally of tomatoes picked yesterday and today was... 32.5kg.
And more that I couldn't be bothered with, little ones etc. And some tomatillos that I'm ignoring. And the tomatoes that I had at home already. I've now got a strict tomato rotation system, and woe betide anyone who messes with it!

And I have been Googling green tomato recipes. I might make green tomato curry tomorrow. And yes, I'd LOVE your tomato ketchup recipe please! Might make a spicy green ketchup too.

5 tomatoes ripe, Shove ? Poor you, you've really been hit by the weather haven't you!

I went back to plot again today, and one of the people who has very blighted spuds is a lovely v. old chap, who is normally very regimented and super - tidy. He hoes a different, small area each day. Yet his potatoes are blighted and his lettuce has bolted, and weeds are everywhere. I hope he's ok.

In blight-resistant tomato news, so far the Losetto and Fandango are holding up, tho there are those bullseye patches on Losetto. I've left some of them in, as a) interesting, and b) I got cold and wet and ran out of bags. The flavour of both is nice, Losetto was a bit of a thug, and 2/3 of the plants didn't seem to ripen much. Fandango ok, a biggish cordon. Not the best flavour, but I'll grow it again I think because of the blight. Plus I have seed left over.

spotted you love your tomatoes, so see if you can just leave some to ripen, if you have the space
Recipe is for ripe tomatoes.

Mrs Fairfax's Tomato Ketchup

6 lbs ripe tomatoes
½ lb shallots
1 head garlic
1 lb light brown sugar
½ oz pepper
½ teasp ground cloves
6 bay leaves
1 teasp grated ginger
2 pints malt vinegar
4 oz salt
some hot chillis/chilli powder if you like it hot!

Boil tomatoes with salt for an hour.
Add other ingredients and boil well for another hour, being careful to keep well stirred.
Remove bay leaves.
Liquidize.
When cold, bottle and make airtight.
Tastes much better after 12 months!

I meant leave to ripen after you have taken them off the plant of course! Its late....

This happened to me a couple of weeks ago - had 12 massive tomato plants on my allotment absolutely bursting with fruit of all shapes and sizes and suddenly in no time at all they'd all turned black.

I picked and rescued tons of unripe tomatoes but had no time to do anything with them before we went away for a few days. Came home to kilos and kilos of diseased tomatoes. Made chutney with the survivors but that was a joyless activity (boiling bastard kilner jars at midnight).

You have all my sympathy. Like you I was so proud of my tomatoes but definitely put off from growing again. My only consolations are a pumpkin the size of a pig, two mooli (out of 50 seeds planted) and some Japanese wineberry canes which will hopefully fruit next year

It is an absolutely devastating disease - the speed of it is frightening. I always think of Ireland in the 1840s and how dreadfully quickly the tragedy must have come upon those poor people.

spotted - I think you should STILL be proud of your tomatoes. I wonder how many kilos you've had off them in total, I bet it's nearing 100, if not more! It's a staggering harvest! Blight isn't anything you do 'wrong', and there's not much you can do about it (unless you want to spray) - it's just one of those awful things that just happens.

I was wondering if I could ask your advice about my varieties for next year. I've had such problems this year that I was thinking of going for ones that are cool climate. I'm hoping I don't have to compromise too much on taste. So I was thinking Outdoor Girl and Smadar F1. Thoughts??

Oh, and I hope your old fella neighbour is OK. It's really worrying when people just vanish, isn't it? I am thinking of putting together a Facebook group for our site, so that we can keep in touch in the event of any problems like that! (I know not everyone is on it, but my 87 year old grandma manages!!)

morning - hope you are not fretting too much spotted - as shove says, you have already done amazingly well with growing them.
shove - re tomatoes I know you are higher up than me, but I have had much better tomatoe crops for the last 2 years by starting them off quite early, and babying them until they could go into the greenhouse full time. They flowered and set fruit that bit earlier, and now they are ripening even though its getting cold on a night. I only grew 3 varieties- Sungold for cherry , Roma for plum (cooking) and Marmande for beefsteak. The Sungold and Roma have been good, the Marmande was okay, but the snails adored them, so have not really had that many, and the taste wasn't amazing. I did Smadar last year - good crop, but a bit thin on flavour. Maybe up here , without a really good summer, its hard to get them really tasty?

Morning! Oddly, Roma is my least successful to a tomato -I got loads of fruit, but most of it is in my house, green and un ripe! Eveb where they got maximum sun, they didn't really ripen. I'm not sure I'd grow them again. Mine was Roma VF -not sure if that makes a difference.

Shove what about some of the eastern European tomatoes? I did Black Krim (from Crimea, obvs), and I loved them - really good flavour and delicious sliced. Its my official Favourite Tomato. They weren't super early, but when they did ripen it came regularly and quite prolifically. I'm also tempted by Black Prince next year, and perhaps Stupice, which is Czech and v early, appara.

I also started my toms quite early and babied them. Then shoved them outside to the wilds of Bucks as I have no greenhouse . I pleased them put when they were quite big - well over knee-high so mine weren't really bothered by slugs and snails. They just eat my greens, it seems, and my strawbs.

Thank you all for your tomato empathy and support

EagleRay oh no! Poor you having blight earth an me, and then losing lots! I know I'm lucky that it hadn't happened before. I am a bit nervous that there are blight spores on my piles and piles and trays and bowls of ripening tomatoes. It took me ages to sort and pluck and wash and sort them yesterday, so I'll be soooo gutted if they turn anyway.

Hey, we have an ongoing veg patch/allotment thread here -->[[http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/2437828-Allotment-Veg-patch-thread-4-Lettuce-and-Peppers-and-Pears-OH-MY?msgid=56716386#56716386]] Why don't you come and join us! Unless you're on it already and I've not clocked your name change?

You can await your amazing harvest of Japanese wineberry, and be all proud about your piggy pumpkin amongst folk who understand!

Thanks SO MUCH for the recommendations! I will bin the idea of Smadar and try a Russian one instead - if you can't get flavour out of 'em book there is no hope for me! There is no Black Krim in my rather restricted seed catalogue, but there is Black Russian, which might be similar??

I hear you on the need to start early. This was a problem for me this year and I think I was a week or two late due to the fact I was busy digging out a base for the greenhouse! I've learnt that I can't afford to do that up here. So next year, I will start them off as early as I can. They've been under glass all summer - but it just hasn't been warm enough to really get them going. It doesn't help that my greenhouse is shaded for part of the day in summer (impossible to avoid even at the end of my north-facing plot due to neighbours' trees!).

It has been a very cold summer here - I can count the days where it has got over 18 degrees on one hand, and there has been a lot of cloud cover too. Even for Sheffield, it is unusual. I notice, however, that the Met Office are predicting cooler summers due to some kind of North Atlantic trend (don't really understand meteorology) - so think it's wise to assume this is going to continue as a pattern, rather than being a one-off!

If you have room put your unripe toms in a draw with a couple of ripe(theriper the better)as the natural gas the bananas give off will help ripen them.I have wilt on my greenhouse toms and have just stripped off all the leaves as the fruit will ripen on the plants.I will empty my compost o to the beds that grew potatoes this year so it is part of my rotation.