Tomatoes

They finally started turning red this week! Yay!!

I noticed Wednesday, but was in denial, that the plants are not looking really healthy. I am now 99% sure as to why.

My tomatoes have blight. Yes, blight, as in Irish Potato Famine blight. Who knew it attacked tomatoes, too? I read in the local paper that it was just down the road (literally- they interviewed a gardener who lives in a section of town approximately a mile from my house as the crow flies) about three weeks ago, and prayed it wouldn't find its way here. But it has.

I yanked out the worst hit plants and threw them in the trash, as well as all of my cucmbers, which never really took off this year. I made sure I picked up every spare leaf and everything, too. The reason I did not yank out all the plants is because there are still a few decent-looking tomatoes on some plants left, so I was thinking of leaving them for another couple of days, in hopes they'd turn red. Now that I've been reading tons of stuff online about blight, though, I think I'm going back outside in the rain tonight, detach those green tomatoes, and trash the rest of the plants. Hopefully Sunday will be somewhat decent (screw you, hurricane Danny!) so I can get out there and give the garden a good lookover, to make sure there is no trace of tomato anything left out there.

The plants have to go out with the trash, and not in the compost, because blight is a fungus. You do not even want it on your property, much less in your compost that will eventually be sprinkled all over new plants, because you've just screwed yourself and any future plants. This year, bascially, has been a perfect storm for blight growth here in NJ- the fungus normally hits a couple of places, but between the fungus itself travelling, according to one site, up to 40 miles, and the enormous, Biblical amounts of rain we've had this summer, it's been prime season for growing any kind of fungus.

Well, at least I'm not alone- I heard a while ago Michelle Obama had tomato blight in her White House garden, too! Apparently it's far more common in organic gardens than in those that use various chemicals. Geez, you try and do something right...