Saturday, July 11, 2009

Do Our Tomatoes Have Irish Potato Blight?

Thank you, another blog, for alerting us to this.

We thought it was all the rain and coolness, but our tomato plants at our community garden are dying. It is some kind of blight. Being mostly natural gardeners (but all organic when it comes to pest control-we plead guilty to minor use of artificial fertilizers) spouse applied copper spray-when there was a short pause in the rain.

According to this article, it is widespread...may be impacting prices of tomatoes and potatoes at the store..and it isn't just us...it is all other the northeast.

Now it appears that the same blight that caused the problem with potatoes in the 1840's may be the cause of our problems. Except that what we have looks more like run of the mill late blight. But, it is too early for late blight. Both our plants and the few tomatoes that formed have the blight. If we do have the Irish Potato blight, our plants are goners along with our tomato season.

Gee, a historic blight for someone interested in slow food and heritage livestock. How....somehow fitting.

-Sob-

Tomatoes are a highlight of the gardening season. A very healthy highlight of the gardening season. I can't eat too many but each bite is heavenly. And tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches are a guilty pleasure.

By the way, there's another plant suffering out there. Zucchini. Yes, that's right. We may have to buy our zucchini this year. Say, if anyone has zucchini to dump on our doorstep, feel free. Our address is.....

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