Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi All,

More questions!

I discovered last night what I think is blight on my Toms, black stems toms going all horrid.

I have pulled them all but is the ground ok to replant, srawberries, onion etc or will the blight be in the ground and kill off what I plant?

Thanks in advance, Mandy

As I understand it (though not an expert on these matters), blight passes to plants in the same family. GYO says that carrots, parsnips, celery, peppers, tomatoes and potatoes are part of the same family, so I would avoid planting any of these in the same ground within one season.

Thanks Waffler, don't want any more disasters

Mandy

From what I've read as well, that makes sense! Shame isn't it? but not worth running the risk methinks! DDL

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Might not be blight. Sounds more like stressed plants due to too little light and damp conditions.
Of course I could be wrong....

Hi PickledTink,

You could be right I never thought of that. I was working away a few weeks ago and had someone look after cats/plot. They hacked back the toms to the max to try and get them to ripen, since then the stems all went black and the toms started getting scars? and going black.

The green ones I rescued to try and ripen are all going the same way.

Not good

Sorry Mandy, it does sound like blight The tomatoes get a sort of brown bruise on them which gets bigger and the stems have a brownish black stain on them. Better luck next year If you grow your own plants there are disease/blight resistent strains of seed available but I don't know if you can buy them as plants in the UK.

Hi Roitelet,

I tried packet seeds and they never germinated, so I resorted to what was in the fridge The plants were doing great until a few days ago, but are sadly now in the compost heap!

This is my first year growing so it is a leason to be learned, I will stick with packet seeds next year.

Mandy

Mandy with tomato seeds I just leave mine (watered obviously) and eventually they do germinate. This year some took longer than three weeks to germinate. Ferline is a blight resistant variety that produces a good crop.

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Thanks LJ,

Maybe next year I need to be a little more patient, I think after 2 weeks I thought oh well start again.

I will give them ago next year, Mandy

I'm puzzled. Some of the tomatoes on one of my plants have done this too. The odd thing is the plant has given me loads of perfect ripe tomatoes for weeks right up until now.
I didn't realise it could strike at any point in the growth cycle. I thought it developed or didn't and that was that.
The affected plant's in a grow bag which I would normally add to the compost heap. Bad idea? Should I ditch the contents of the bag entirely?

I would ditch them Pickledtink because of the spores from the blight.

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If it is blight, be careful about composting! It could be passed on!!!

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Zebedee
"Raised to a state of heavenly lunacy where I just can't be touched!"