Sheltering tomatoes from the rain?

[toomuchtooold]

My polytunnel collapsed in a storm about 3 days ago and I'm currently in the house hiding from my neighbour who says that he will help me fix it. I strongly suspect this will turn out to mean that I'll spend half the morning showing him how it broke so that he can ascertain that it can't be fixed (I know that already) and tell me I should buy a new one (I don't want to, I'd rather wait and get a proper greenhouse) but he was very adamant about it because, he says, my tomato plants will all get mold if I don't protect them from the rain.

What do you guys think? Is this a thing? Is he talking about blight maybe? I've rescued 5 plants and stuck them in pots on the terrace where I can put them out of the rain if I have to - I was going to let the rest take their chances, or if you guys tell me that my neighbour's right then I'll move a few more to the terrace and plant some beans and sweetcorn on my new bed. But I'd rather just leave the tomatoes there if I can. Temperature's not a problem - it's a bit shit just now but our average summer temperature here's about 28 degrees, everything grows like the clappers.

Before you write the neighbour off he may know what might affect your tomato plants under the conditions you are experiencing. Overwatering is certainly not good for them. I think you do need to get that poly tunnel back up and if he's offering to help , well why not?

Tell him failure is not an option, and good luck!

I don't think he has any sort of magic local lowdown on growing conditions sadly - his gardening advice is generally a bit hit and miss (he advised spraying our box hedge with lime to get rid of box caterpillar as "they're from China, our pesticides don't work") and I can't find anything on the RHS tomatoes page to suggest that tomatoes in the open are a problem, so I just wanted to check with you guys.
I really don't want the broken polytunnel put back up - it collapsed after water pooled in the slack plastic, but the way it's built it's not possible to tighten the plastic enough to stop the water pooling without pulling it down on yourself. So even if it could be repaired, it's just going to be a wait till it collapsed again and takes the rest of my tomato plants with it. I'm also going on holiday in a week, so it would be my neighbour then coming into the garden to try and fix it again, apologising about the trashed plants etc... no, like I say, I'm very happy to let the tomatoes take their chances or if they are going to get mold, just pull them out and stick in some sweetcorn and lettuce.

He probably does mean tomato blight. It is spread very easily in wet weather, when the fungus spores are splashed onto the plant, and is apparent very quickly when purple blotches start appearing on the leaves. Once the spores are in the soil, there will always be a risk that subsequent planting a will be affected.

Yeah, my neighbour grows his (well, hers, it's his wife who takes charge of the tomatoes apparently ) on the terrace as well, and he was suggesting that I replace the greenhouse with just a canopy. I guess that fits with what Nan says about soil splashing up onto the leaves.

I think you are supposed to water a lot though, yes - Monty says always keep the soil moist and water little and often.

Apparently Monty talks a fair bit of nonsense though, I had no idea about this till recently, but there's a thing on twitter, #shoutyhalfhour where people shout at the telly during Gardener's World when he gets things wrong

Nooo! Monty is luffly! [Grin] Alan Titchmarsh, though ...

Toomuchtooold - shouting at GW has been a "thing" in my family for decades as my dad hated Alan Titchmarsh and only grudgingly admits that Monty Don is a decent bloke. The only presenter he ever really rated was Geoff Hamilton.