help....i have come home to this....what is it? and what can i do? All advice welcome x
(http://i859.photobucket.com/albums/ab151/beanie333/CIMG3233.jpg)
(http://i859.photobucket.com/albums/ab151/beanie333/CIMG3232.jpg)
(http://i859.photobucket.com/albums/ab151/beanie333/CIMG3229.jpg)
It looks very much like it to me. If it is there's nothing to do but burn everything.
oh no - they are my outside tom's and i am keeping my greenhouse door tightly shut. Can i use the green unaffected tom's somehow? Oh what a horrible horrible pain...........
What else does blight affect?
In a day or two the green toms will turn black too, but you might well be able to make green tomato chutny if you're very quick. I'm guessing it's Phytophthora infestans and it particularly affects potatoes but I think most of the solanaceae tribe are susceptible.
If you work fast you can still use any tome that hasn't turned brown. Don't expect to keep them indoors if there's a trace of a brown mark; they grow luxuriant mould and rot.
Is it even worth trying to ripen them Robert? Won't they already have got infected?
Okay i am now picking the green ones. thanks peeps - any good recipes for green tomatoes anyone?
If they're absolutely free of infection they'll still ripen, but it's safer to use thm for chutney!
robert how do they ripen once picked - sorry very thick question probably - but if i dont ask i will never know!
In a bag with a ripe banana. Dad used to put them on the window ledge but they don't ripen very fast like that.
Okay i am off to buy a ripe banana tomorrow - thank you to everyone for all you advice.
I have tried ripening fruit from blighted plants in the past and found they all go brown before they ripened even with a banana. Sorry I think it is chutney tine too.
okay thanks for letting me know. I think you maybe right. Thanks.
im with digaroo i got 21 pounds of green toms off my blighted outdoor plants put them in trays on the windowsil with ripe bananas and they all went black with in a few days so had to bin the lot :'( had i made chutney i would have something to show from them.
You can tell if they are blighted, even if they aren't brown, by the smell. They lose that fab tom smell and gradually smell disgusting. If they don't have the tom smell I burn them.
Burnt about 4 kilos today. Boohoo! :'( :'(
But the cherry toms at the other end of my plot are still good. And my potatoes are unaffected.
so can i ask why burn them? and what do you do with the growbags?
The blight lives on the living plant tissue. If you burn the plants you know that everything is dead including the blight. If you compost it there is always the chance it will survive and strike again. Mind you clearly it does survive anyway since it strikes most years. Hey ho! Growbags should be OK to be composted once the plants are removed I think.
okay thanks - dont think i will risk it with the growbags though - i will dump them rather then put it in my compost bin.
It survives because people don't eliminate volunteer potatoes ruthlessly enough. Infected spuds survive to spread the disease once again.
So Robert what would you suggest - i want to make sure I am doing everything to eliminate this. Do i need to put some chemical on and around the area the growbags sat?
The sad thing is - i wasn't quick enough to save my green tom's : ( What a horrible thing blight is.
Take all infected tissue and either burn it or very thoroughly compost it. Blight survives in living tissue; it's not a disease lie white rot which lasts years in the soil, so there's no need to worry about soil hygiene in this particlular context. Just be ruthless about eliminating potato accidentals next spring, and at least you won't be the one perpetuating it.
My outside Toms are OK but I suspect not for much longer. My neighbour has overt blight in his tomato patch and is doing sweet nothing about it.
For the sake of your neighbours, if you get the blight, just rip the plant out and dispose of it. As growers, we have this nuturing nature and think that if we cut affected bits off and give the plant some TLC, it will recover and we can salvage some of the crop. It's a load of tosh, just cut out all the intermediate stages and pull out the plant. Sorry OP, they are toast.
don't panic - my neighbours are safe -
the same day i put the post up and had it confirmed i dumped all affected and tried to save the green toms - unfortunatly i had to dump it all. What i have done is put the plants/toms and growsacks in black bags and taken to refuge - unfortuntly where I am fires are not permitted or the very least frowned upon so i have done my darm hardest to stop further infestation.
I come home from my hols tofind all my beef steaks were blighted,so sad .
Quote from: beanie3 on September 05, 2010, 21:13:29
don't panic - my neighbours are safe -
the same day i put the post up and had it confirmed i dumped all affected and tried to save the green toms - unfortunatly i had to dump it all. What i have done is put the plants/toms and growsacks in black bags and taken to refuge - unfortuntly where I am fires are not permitted or the very least frowned upon so i have done my darm hardest to stop further infestation.
argh indeed,you are responsible for your own plants and their disease,i am lucky i guess i can burn onsite,but if i couldnt there is no way i could live with myself by taking them to the dump/landfill,cant you find some way of burning em?
I have the same problem,no way I can burn them,sadly in these modern times the opportunity to burn has become less and less.
I wish i could Elvis 2003. Unfortunatly my neighbours works for the council so i just can't risk having a fire. I wish i could just burn them and get away with it. Okay i could probably take them to some field but one i might get in trouble and two i actually think it maybe more careless as i am risk at spreading it further. If i can do anything different i would - I don't know smother them with bleach - whatever. I really want to be responsible but not sure what more i can do.
Betula out of curiosity what have you done?
Just came back from the plot and one of my plants had the dreaded black patches on the stems so I had to practice what I preach and pull it out.
It was a Black Cherry from T&M seed, TBH the variety has been a bit of a disappointment because, for some reason, the seeds took over a month to germinate so the plants are well behind everything else and the fruit was just starting to ripen.
So I feel your pain, Beanie and other fellow A4A growers. And this is actually what this tomato growing malarkey is really all about. A bit like watching England play in the World Cup. The fact that we continue is a triumph of hope over experience.
We are not allowed bonfires on the site which is weird because the regional Fire Station is across the road and they set fire to all sorts of stuff in their yard for drills at least twice a week. So the plant went in the site skip.
Bum :-(
Those photos made me shudder-I have only seen blight once and it`s something one never forgets.
It`s a bit late now but the actual compost would have been fine to re-cycle via the bin-the spores reside in living tissue not in soil as such
thanks cleo that is good to know - i just wanted to do my very best to get rid of it so i panicked and dumped the lot! Maybe a bit ott but i just didnt care and didnt want it to spread anywhere!
The only way I can in the Brown bin. :(
Quote from: DenbyVisitor on September 06, 2010, 16:38:22
Jthis is actually what this tomato growing malarkey is really all about. A bit like watching England play in the World Cup.
Bum :-(
That's EXACTLY what tomato growing is like!! ;D Except far more heartbreaking!
Incidentally my neighbour has also got rampant blight in her toms and is doing nothing about it. She is rarely there but has been there this weekend (either that or someone's nicked her onions) so must know the state they're in. I was seriously thinking of going onto her plot and removing them and burning them for her if she doesn't do it in the next few days. (They are completely brown and there's no hope of saving any of the fruits so i wouldn't be depriving her of anything.) Has anyone ever done this and if so what was the reaction??
I never saw blight in the 16 years I had allotments so never needed to do something like that.
But were I in your shoes I would not hesitate to destroy them. Maybe it`s a matter to raise with those in charge?. Nobody ever wishes to cause trouble but that is just plain irresponsible