Tomato Blight?

Well if it's not one thing, it's another. Tending a garden is like having another child. And how frustrating it is when you see all the effort and time you devoted to your garden turns up some "problem children". What's even worse, when one plant has the blight, it spreads...and spreads fast. So what causes it? How do you treat it? How do you prevent it? Well, I am no garden expert. Like everything else, be it learning an instrument or learning how to write a web-based application it takes experience and time and going through the pains of making mistakes. :) So this is what I know thus far about the nasty tomato blight.

First, there are two types of blight. Early Blight and Late Blight. Phytophthora infestans (aka "Late Blight"). It is not a bacteria or a virus, but rather are a "fungus" caused by infectious spores from standing water that is stagnant on the plants. Early Blight, is caused by a different fungus and occurs in more arid regions. Regardless, the outcome is the same, leaf and stem legions and fruit rot. Blight can occur at any time. I think that what we are seeing here is a Late Blight. Temperature, humidity, and rainfall are the players in this disease. Additionally, blights can spread to other plants from wind blown rain and running ground water. Blight needs a living organism to survive. So keep this in mind for our mild winters and potential un-rotted organic material in the soil. This combination can facilitate another blight outbreak for the next growing season.

So how do we prevent this problem? I've read a variety of suggestions and will list them here.

• Don't plant tomatoes in the same location next year. (I've read keep them away from the soil for 4 seasons)
• Use a drip irrigation vs hose watering to reduce splash on leaves.
• Raised beds and well spaced so they are not touching
• Remove any leaves or stems that are showing the blight
• Apply a fungicide

Anyway, these are all lessons learned for me. Hopefully this information will benefit those other garden aficionados that read this. If anyone has other insightful information on tomato blight, please share!

Blossom-end rot

OK...so my technique of pruning my tomato plants have been favorable as I have quite a lot of fruit coming in. The problem is, as they started to ripen, many of them became rotten on the bottom. This happened to me last year too, for the first batch, but then it got better. In talking with the Gardner and describing these symptoms to him, he suggested Blossom-End Rot. So I google it and indeed there it is! So reasons for this are as follows:

• Shortage in calcium in the soil
  
• Improper watering
• Too much nitrogen in the soil.

One year I saved egg shells and then I put them in the soil around my tomatoes. Think I'll need to to that next year to help with the calcium. As for watering, could have been due to the heavy rains we had in the spring. But for dryness, I suppose mulching around the plants would keep the soil moist. Next year though, I'm going to put in a drip system.

In other news, peas have been harvested and I planted a new batch for the fall. I also planted lettuce for the fall as well.

And I'll NEVER do pumpkins again. At least not in my small garden plot. They over-took the rest of my ground fruits and then turned around and rotted. (hmmm...maybe they rotted because of the same reason my tomatoes got end rot.)