Thursday, July 09, 2009

late blight information

tomato with late blight 2

This is what late blight looks like on the tomato plants in my community garden plot. I pulled up half of my tomatoes today. :(

Cornell information sheet: Late Blight: a serious disease killing potatoes and tomatoes this year
Another Cornell info sheet: Late blight on tomatoes
UMASS special alert: Late Blight on Tomato and Potato

late blight (Phytophthora infestans)

8 comments:

Sally said...

I'm really sorry that you had to pull up your plants! We've been spreading the word at our community garden, but I've been away so I haven't checked mine yet.
I'm glad your corn and a few other crops are doing well. I planted some basil from seed, kind of late, but it's not doing much.

Nate Finch said...

Yikes. I just heard from another gardener at the community gardens that he had some plants with late blight as well. That's awful. So far I think we've avoided it, but I'm sure with two other gardens in the immediate vicinity getting it, we will as well. The question now is, do we spray fungicide (something we really don't want to do) or just let our fates be determined by the wind?

Kelly said...

Sorry to hear about the blight. I hope your tomatoes remain safe! I have spent hours pouring over potato photos and I think I have plain old rot going on, the symptoms don't match anything. I can't get over those spuds- if you check my blog you will see the size of my taters I had to pull up, soooo pathetic!! Great job spreading the late blight word around, from what I have read it is some nasty stuff.

Kristin said...

Wow, so sorry to hear about your plants! This is our last day of vacation and I am looking forward to getting back to check on my garden...we have so many tomato plants this year. And thanks for the info on harvesting potatoes, we're growing them for the first time and I had no idea when they are ready for harvest! The most frustrating part of the late blight spread is how it is coming from the big chain stores...we try so hard to buy only local (and love doing it!) and it would be so frustrating to have our plants ruined by the kind of suppliers we try to avoid! :(

Jackie said...

So sorry to hear about the late blight. That's for sharing info on the disease, so we'll know what to look for. -Jackie

Jackie said...

Oops...typo earlier. I meant to say "Thanks for sharing..." -Jackie

Adriana said...

Ugh, sorry about the blight... I got severe powdery mildew on all my tomatillos and had to yank out all four plants.

PS, I referenced your blog on my second podcast. I hope I qouted you and your blog correctly. I'll let you know when it's up!

TeresaNoelleRoberts said...

So sorry about your tomatoes. I hope the rest pull through all right.

Apart from everyone's individual tomato and potato losses, I feel bad that so many new gardeners seemed to be taking the plunge this season and between terrible weather and this darn blight, even experienced gardeners here in New England are having a rough year. I know these things happen, but if I were a newbie, I might throw in my trowel in despair.