Botrytis on tomatoes

[cazsudz]

Everyone is talking about blight on their toms but I think what I have is botrytis as the leaves and some of the toms are covered in grey mould rather than having brown spots. Some of the fruit have squishy patches at the top and some are falling off. Very disappointed as this my first year with a greenhouse. I have has some ripe ones and thereare lots of green ones.

Does anyone have any experience of this? Should I take off the healthy green ones and try to ripen indoors? Any advice for avoiding it next year? Do I need to sterilise the greenhouse in some way? And can I grow lettuce over winter in the old growbags that the toms have been in?

Thanks for any help.

Caz

[minicrank]

I know nothing much about gardening (it is my first 3 months growing veg) but I had the same problem. I have taken the green tomatoes off the plant that was most affected (and threw the plant away - not composted it) and brought them indoors to ripen. They are okay - I had a couple tonight in egg fried rice. The other plant didn't look too bad and so I have left that one in the greenhouse and he seems to be doing okay - though I am taking any damaged leaves off daily. I am certainly not going to use the compost again - though thats only because I do not know if you can but don't want to take a risk.

Hopefully someone with more experience will post a reply but I just thought I would let you know you are not alone.

[terrier]

I've had this problem this year. A few weeks ago the stems and leaves started to get covered in grey mold. I've defoliated the plants and cut out any infected stems. I'll leave the tomatoes on the plants to ripen as normal. If you want the greenhouse space for other things, cut down the stems with the toms still attached and store them in a cool, dry place and they should all ripen OK.