Allotments 4 All

Confirmed blight on my tomato's!  Stripped the plants (other threads been useful info, thank you) :)

My question is, the bags of soil.  What do you do with it?  Can I tip it in the garden somewhere else, put in compost bin, or do I need to get rid of it completely from the garden.

Bit confused about that one :) :)

You can use the compost as mulch or mix it into the compost heap there is no reason to dispose of it.

Phytophthora infestans requires a host to survive between seasons. Usually it lives in infected potato tubers that have been discarded or missed, however it can survive mild winters on small bits of unrotted or unfrozen plant debris in the soil.
As long as you remove & compost all the vegetation from any tomato & potato plants you have there will be no host for it to live on therefore it cannot survive overwinter.

We can compost the infected haulms and tomato plants?

I didnt know that as I was always told to remove it from the plot and burn or put in the normal household waste bin.

Yes composting or freezing (if we ever got a proper winter) destroys the oomycete that causes the disease.

My Rodale  Garden Problem Saver book says"All the affected plants must be removed to the trash can,even if they have only slight symptoms of the disease.Do NOT place diseased pants in your compost pile,even if you maintain an active pile that heats up."

I am confused now.

XX Jeannine

Baccy Man is spot on(oops, a pun..).

There's a trend to panic about all sorts of things related to pests and diseases.

Rot it down = no problems

J - I would never - never - never put my diseased pants in anyone's compost!

Most books err on the side of caution so people can't make mistakes.
If you added blight infected vegetation to a compost heap but spread the compost before everything had rotted down properly & some of the infected vegetation was still intact you could spread the disease. If you let it rot down properly so there is no remaining plant material then you won't.

I think Ill spread my infected stuff on some spare ground I have so that it can freeze then.

Thanks for the info  :)

Quote from: delboy on September 01, 2008, 10:50:39
J - I would never - never - never put my diseased pants in anyone's compost!

Hey, delboy has got diseased pants, the mind boggles!

The greenhouse can actually get colder than the outside in winter.

QuoteThe greenhouse can actually get colder than the outside in winter.

How's that then?

Surely the temperature in an unheated greenhouse while initially higher than the outside can only drop to the same temperature as its surroundings during the night.