before I start yanking plants, this is blight...right?

[SolarAndWood]

Last year was the first year we have had no late blight and I credit it to single vining on a trellis. Pretty sure what I found in the Romas and one of the slicers today is blight? Time for drastic action?

 

[begreen]

I would cut out the obvious sections and open up the plants. Cut out any sucker growth and get some air around the base of the plants. You want to be able to see some light through the plants and no leaves near the ground. Doing this may to save the crop.

 

[SolarAndWood]

Yep that's the plan. I cleared the beds on either side and now headed for the tomato bed. Thanks for confirming. We've got 70 plants in so I think this is going to require a trip to get some West coast IPAs before I start. I'm single vining everything going forward determinate or not.

 

[billb3]

+1 on trying to remove the turned/infected leaves and getting some air movement before resorting to chems.

 

[begreen]

Yep that's the plan. I cleared the beds on either side and now headed for the tomato bed. Thanks for confirming. We've got 70 plants in so I think this is going to require a trip to get some West coast IPAs before I start. I'm single vining everything going forward determinate or not.

I just got in from doing the same. Our roma tomatoes were much too crowded. I went for some homebrewed Wit beer, what was your choice?

 

[SolarAndWood]

I went for some homebrewed Wit beer, what was your choice?

Between the Palate Wrecker, Ballast Point Sculpin and Elysian's Stardust, I have been on a West Coast kick this summer. I slummed with Torpedos while working the Romas yesterday.

So, is the whole bush tomato thing BS? Everything I have read says not to prune them, just support them? Single vining may give a smaller harvest theoretically but dealing with blight sucks.

 

[begreen]

With our cool nights I have to deal with it annually. Keeping the plants open and off the soil seems to help. This year we got clobbered by flea beetles. This already stressed out the plants so I left more foliage than normal on the plants. Not sure it helped at all though.

 

[DevilsBrew]

I've got blight settling in too. I usually spray Safer Organic Fungicide but I gave up with all of the rain. This year has been incredible. Last summer a drought, this summer a monsoon.

 

[DevilsBrew]

One more thing, not sure if this matters or not...my potato leaf variety is doing well. No blight.

 

[rideau]

If you are in a windy site you can safely leave all the "suckers" on. My plants are usually humungous, healthy, with ridiculous poundage of tomatoes right up until I strip the plants of a hundred pounds or so of partially ripened tomatoes before the first heavy frost.

 

[SolarAndWood]

If you are in a windy site you can safely leave all the "suckers" on. My plants are usually humungous, healthy, with ridiculous poundage of tomatoes right up until I strip the plants of a hundred pounds or so of partially ripened tomatoes before the first heavy frost.

and u never get blight? Our first frost here is mid October and guaranteed the blight will ravage these plants long before then. There wasn't even a sign of it a week ago and it looked like we had the crop of the century coming. 60' x 3' x 4' loaded with fruit.

 

[rideau]

The garden is pretty exposed, on the height of land (just a tad higher than the surrounding land) with horse pasture on two sides, the house and some plantings on one side from 10 to 60 feet away, and open land with a fence break about 100 feet away in the other direction. Really too much wind, and no problem with blight, Generally, we haven't problems with diseases or pests. Fertilize the tomatoes about once a month with fish fertilizer, Epsom salts, aspirin and molasses (not all at once). Put banana peel, compost, kelp, bone meal, rock phosphate and blood meal, my blend, in the planting holes. Mulch and stake or cage the plants.

 

[SolarAndWood]

hmmm, our garden is way exposed (600' above the valley floor 3/4 a mile away) and the romas were all tied up to a horizontal 2x4 about 5 ft off the soil. We never had an issue with blight until the Hurricane Irene year two years ago, had even more rain this year.