To my gardening friends

[tamidon]

There's been alot in the news about tomato late blight fungus. If you are growing tomatoes this year you need to look out for it. If you get it on your tomatoes you can't toss the plants into your compost bin as that will just give the fungus somewhere to grow over the winter. Bag and toss all affected plants and any tomatoes that show any signs.

I'm gonna have to buy shipped tomatoes this year if I want to have any salsa for the year:-(

Comments

[kjc007.livejournal.com]

You could also put them out with Yard Waste if your town does that, because they chuck collected yard waste into a big compost pile that reaches temperatures that should kill all pathogens & bad stuffs.

[mizarchivist]

Thanks for the warning. Thus far, I'm guessing I won't get any tomatoes. The few fruit I have are obstinately green. I will watch for that though, since I'd have certainly pitched any refuse from them onto my compost.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

The risk of blight goes *way down* if you raised your tomatoes from seed and your potatoes from seed potatoes from a known and responsible source.

Blight is tuber borne in potatoes, but NOT seedborne in tomatoes so the only way your handraised tomatoes can get it is from your potatoes. The potatoes most likely to come infected come from big box stores that get seedlings from factory greenhouses.

Just sayin. I've got some spots on my potatoes that are pretty definitively NOT blight. THus far. But I'm keepin' an eye on them.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

The risk of blight goes *way down* if you raised your tomatoes from seed...

I sure hope so. My plants were volunteers in someone's compost heap, and they're planted in containers on a second-floor porch, so I hope this means they'll be safe(r) from that.

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

The tomato version is airborne - a fungus. It can spread from handling of infected material or proximity. Home gardeners are likely safer if they've hand-raised their crops, as you said, but Tamar's farmer didn't get his tomato plants from a big box store, or even a factory GH, I'm betting.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

Yes, sorry about that. It's true. Also if you have multiple gardens (like me!) you can risk spreading it from one garden to another on tools, gloves, shoes, etc.

I was thinking more about small, self-contained gardens, which have a far lower risk.

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

I am often very bad about remembering to clean my tools between clients. A bottle of rubbing alcohol or baby wipes in the car helps. In a greenhouse environment we're taught sanitation is extremely important, just like in a hospital. It can be easy to be lazy because it's sort of counterintuitive: clean+soil !=sanitary.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

True! But on the upside, you can usually sneeze all you want on your plants and they'll be fine!

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

So far so good here, but while you were getting rain, we had 3 weeks of hot dry weather which hopefully quelled any spread. Getting humid and rainy again though. Lots of places in the country are still in drought - hope your tomatoes don't cost a fortune.