Thursday, July 11, 2013

late blight - arrgh!

I got a notice today that late blight appears to be in our area. Its within 200 miles away - in Franklin County, western MA. **#@&!!! *^&&%%*!!

Map: http://www.usablight.org/?q=map

At our community garden, we had such a bad experience with late blight last year that we contracted to have late blight resistant tomato seedlings grown for us by a local grower this spring. (I wish I could find the newspaper article link - another **%^$@!)

Our garden is supplying a few organic pest controls to all gardeners. Now that late blight is in the area, our recommendation is to spray all tomatoes and potatoes before rains and at least every 7 days alternating between Oxidate (Johnny's) and copper fungicide.

3 comments:

blancmaison said...

Some people now suggest either milk / butter milk for blight or baking powder , there seems to be a bit said about this ??

Greg said...

Grrrrrrrrrrreat.......

Thanks for posting this link. After checking, it appears that I have late blight only a few miles from my Maryland plot in the next county.

Thanks will appear on my blog. :)

Ralph said...

We here in Rhineland Westphalia have a problem with blight, Phytophthora infestans, which in my experience can be solved (usually) by sheltering the tomatoes under plastic greenhouse sheeting and being careful to water the roots but not the upper portion of the plant.

I have read about spraying plants with a milk solution and have tried this out, but it didn't work, at least not for me.

In the '70s, I grew several tomato plants in New Haven and never saw any signs of blight. I'm wondering if this is a recent development in New England, perhaps owing to climate changes?