Topic: Fumigating the greenhouse for next year

[Paulines7]

I have just returned from over 3 weeks in France.  While I have been away, my tomato plants now have died with what I think is blight and my pelargoniums have a lot of dead, mouldy leaves. I have tidied up the pelargoniums and will get rid of the tomato plants in the next day or so.

My question is, how do I get rid of the spores in the greenhouse?  Do I use a fungicide and if so, what is the best one? 

The greenhouse is new and only put up in April 2013.  I think overwatering on a timer caused the problems. 

One other question:  I was going to put the soil from the used growbags on the flower beds and use some of it mixed with perlite for rooting shrub cuttings.  If I do this, will I just be spreading the blight to other plants? 

Your help in this matter is very much appreciated. 

[goodlife]

If you left the GH windows and doors shut while you were away...it is the damp air inside that caused dying leaves to mouldy...totally natural thing to happen..it is part of the rotting off process. Proper tomato blight doesn't effect your flowers and doesn't live in dead leaves once they rot off, so if you take the dead plants away..blight won't have anything left to live on.
I used to fumigate my GH...but found out that in my case it doesn't make any difference to any possible mouldiness or pests at all and haven't bothered doing so anymore...not for years now.
As for the growbags...use them..you won't be spreading blight.

[Paulines7]

Thank you for your reply Goodlife.  I am so pleased to hear that the blight will go when I take my tomato plants out of the greenhouse and that I can safely use the old growbags for other purposes. 

Although I had the greenhouse door closed when I was away, I have 6 automatic vents.  I should have reduced the number of waterings though as the weather was cooler, but I didn't even think about it at the time.  I am sure this couldn't have helped.   

[goodlife]

 

I have 6 automatic vents.

  That is good number of vents..but sadly they don't help with dampness if the temperature inside the GH doesn't rise enough for them to open. But..no harm done..plants are dying down anyway.
Hopefully you had good holiday!

[rugbypost]

HI, just a word on all the plants that have come out of your green house, first I am not saying anyone is wrong but you should bag all the old plants  just thinking they may have had blight is enough to spread it to all your allotment if it is not disposed of  as for your old grow bags isolate them from your daily compost heap put them mixed with some manure to break down and only use  as Top Dressing for your flower beds if you thing it has been contaminated  The cold weather should kill all the blight spores in the grow bags but take all the leafy material to the dump or waste skip. I like to Jay es the green house once a year normally in march as I over winter a lot of flower plants. I bought a cheat window cleaners kit, £3 and use the pad to clean the panes then wash down with jet wash , or hose pipe.

[Paulines7]

Thanks for your reply rugbypost.  I was going to put all my old tomato, cucumber and courgette plants from my greenhouse on to my compost heap.  It sounds like it will be better in the green waste bin that the council collect once a fortnight to compost.  I think they heat treat it so maybe the spores would not survive. 

I will put my old growbags outside the greenhouse for the winter so that the cold weather can get to them.