tomatoes and sweet peppers help?

Gardening to 'grow your own food' from square foot to half an acre !!
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Mo
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Post by Mo »

Our toms had potato blight, worse that the spuds - no fruit at all, brown patches which rot ugggh.
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heebiejeebie
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Post by heebiejeebie »

My toms (5 plants) have about 6 proto-toms on them in total. They're in pots outdoors. My spuds had blight so I'm checking the tomato plants for damage regularly. Last year's toms looked great until we lost about 20 plants to blight.

Might give up on toms until I get a greenhouse/polytunnel.
There's no cure for stupidity.
PK
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Post by PK »

My potatoes are fine but tomatoes and peppers have been affected. Not had blight before.
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b_cos_1_can
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Post by b_cos_1_can »

what is blight?
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Mo
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Post by Mo »

It caused the Irish potato famine in 18(forty something?) Potato leaves get brown patches which spread and if the spores from the brown patches drop onto the spuds they rot. You can avoid it by earthing up so that spuds are not near the surface, so that they don't rot before you dig them, then chop off the blotchy tops and burn them before you dig the spuds and try not to put them on the ground.
Don't store any that look an odd colour.
Farmers spray with fungicide as soon as they hear that blight is in the area, and burn off the haulms with a chemical before lifting.
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Jodi
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Post by Jodi »

Luckily never had a problem with blight....but had similar situation with bits missing from the "not quite ripe" tomatoes. Black Birds!!

I'd prefer to let them ripen on the plant, and should put nets over them (maybe next summer), but by the end of our last summer,we were taking them off to ripen in a window sill - I don't think they taste the same but it was either the window sill or back to the supermarket.

good luck!
Jodi
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