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Late blight tomatoes, remove what I can now?
Joe Brown2
Posts: 65
in Fruit & veg
Seems that in the space of about 5 days all my tomato plants have been overrun with what I believe is late blight, leaves are dying off fast with a grey sort of dusty substance covering the dead leaves and areas of stem.
There are many green tomatoes still on the plants. some are not at full size but most are.
It would seem it cannot be treated so I imagine it\s best for me to remove all the decent sized toms now and ripen them inside?
Included image of an infected area above some full sized toms...
0
Posts
ah will do!
With that section of stem supporting the truss having the blight, I imagine it'll die and the toms will fall off...so might nick those and keep ones with healthy stems supporting them going.
Yes, I agree with Verdun - remove all leaves and top of vines. Keep watering to a minimum.
And yes, remove that affected piece of stem - the tomatoes may well ripen indoors or you can have them fried for breakfast with your bacon.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I was amazed how quicjly tomatoes ripen indoors. I had a glut of unripened cherry tomatoes a few years ago (having sowed seed for the first time and not expecting many to germinate, I sowed the whole packet.... ) I picked them thinking I might get round to making some green tomato chutney. By the time I did most were red. Having just been left in an open plastic tub on the worktop.
If it's Late Blight, it will finish up wiping out the fruit too. Can't tell from the photo whether it's LB or not, but, to be on the safe side, I'd take off all the fruit. The fruit in the photo is well on its way to maturity anyway.
Burn them or bin them. Don't put them on your compost.
Pick the tomatoes (leaving a short bit of stem attached), and bring them indoors and put them in a bowl sitting on top a few bananas. The flavor isn't as sweet as sun ripened, but they'll be red and juicy. Bake them whole in your oven, which will really bring out the sugars and increase sweetness.
Liz, if it's Late Blight, the spores live on in the soil. Or on top of the soil, anyway. That's where the spores finish up after dropping from the foliage. Freezing doesn't kill them. You can turn over the soil, burying the top soil (and the spores) deeply. The spores can't do any further damage from underground. The risk they can pose, lying on the surface, is being splashed up onto foliage next season when watering.
Whether it's Late Blight is another matter. But the above applies to most fungal spores anyway.