Growing your own - is it worth it?

[Anna]

Well, all I can say is you are very lucky, most people have to deal with it, including me!

Aha, the climate in South East Wales is benign, there are very few earthquakes and the air quality is of the best although encouraging rust in roses and lichen on roofs blight is unknown West of Offa's Dyke!! Maybe I'm lucky but cannot recall any fellow local tomato growers experiencing it.
(No doubt, Sod's Law, I will be blighted next year!!)

[hedgehog]

In the summer clouds of blight start to appear from June onwards. The nature of the wind means usually that these clouds are spreading towards the South-East/West. This means that, generally speaking Wales is not a place where blight will occur unless via infected seed potatoes etc.

For me, with my house in a very urban area, I grew lots of cherry tomatoes blight free until I took up an allotment. The potatoes I grew there were exposed to the blight clouds - I always have a crop because I grow (virtually) blight resistant varieties, but unwittingly I have imported the spores on the potatoes into my back garden because I store the potatoes in the shed at the back and now can't grow my cherries

If ams lives in a suburban area far away from allotments and farms etc then tomatoes should be possible. I would however sow some cherry and blight resistant types to avoid the heartbreak. Ferline tastes good too!

[Anna]

In the summer clouds of blight start to appear from June onwards. The nature of the wind means usually that these clouds are spreading towards the South-East/West. This means that, generally speaking Wales is not a place where blight will occur unless via infected seed potatoes etc.

That's interesting because I always thought blight was something caused by watering (over or under) not by something else airborne. You live and learn!

[hedgehog]

That's interesting because I always thought blight was something caused by watering (over or under) not by something else airborne. You live and learn!

It's both Anna - once it's in your soil it will stay there for a number of years - sandy loam 6-7 years, wet clay around 5 years, if the soil is completely inundated with water it'll not last from one year to the other(a method used in the Netherlands until chemicals appeared).

The trouble now is with the agricultural areas that grow a lot of potatoes - the spores are produced there, they spray the spuds to protect them, but the wind carries the spores all over the country.

[MrGongGong]

The Hungarians know how to produce potatoes that are resistant to blight
the purple ones are particularly fine indeed

http://www.thompson-morgan.com/vegetables/potatoes/maincrop/potato-blue-danube/zww5370TM

brilliant roasted and reliable

[jean]

We tried those this year, after we got blight in the very wet summer the year before, but we were very disappointed - they seemed floury and tasteless.

[amateur51]

If ams lives in a suburban area far away from allotments and farms etc then tomatoes should be possible. I would however sow some cherry and blight resistant types to avoid the heartbreak. Ferline tastes good too!

Cheers hodge! I live down the side of several tube/railway lines near to a zone 2 tube station so it doesn't come much more urban.I'll put Ferline on my list

[Anna]

Cheers hodge! I live down the side of several tube/railway lines near to a zone 2 tube station so it doesn't come much more urban.I'll put Ferline on my list

Ams, next year, I wlll hold your hand and guide you through the mysteries of the Love Apple!!
We shall explore compost and sigh about blight - and, yay, we shall gather crops together in the moonlight without the aid of marigolds!!

[amateur51]

Ams, next year, I wlll hold your hand and guide you through the mysteries of the Love Apple!!
We shall explore compost and sigh about blight - and, yay, we shall gather crops together in the moonlight without the aid of marigolds!!

Cheers Anna, a lovely offer - I think - next year being next growing season?

[MrGongGong]

We tried those this year, after we got blight in the very wet summer the year before, but we were very disappointed - they seemed floury and tasteless.

That's odd
we have been growing them for years
they make the best roast potatoes of all the varieties we have tried (and we really have done many others)

[hedgehog]

Yesterday in my mail by magic a link to some recommended varieties that have some blight resistance & are tasty:

http://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/features/fruit-veg/blight-resistant-tomato-varieties/4626.html

There are are probably many more, but these should be readily available.
The cherry tomato Losetto F1 is described as being very resistant & good for pots - if I can get it I'm going to try it!

And here from the same site some tips. I don't have a green house or polytunnel so life is rather more precarious with tomatoes.

http://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/features/fruit-veg/growing-healthy-tomatoes/4624.html

[gurnemanz]

And here from the same site some tips. I don't have a green house or polytunnel so life is rather more precarious with tomatoes.

http://www.gardenersworld.com/plants...toes/4624.html

That link has a picture of what looks like Marmande.



I grew these magnificent beef tomatoes with great success in open ground last year, thanks to that very hot July. Great taste and not readily available in the shops.

I always grow tomatoes and always outside. As you say, some years they can be an almost complete failure. I'm on clay and they don't enjoy sodden soil around their roots.

[umslopogaas]

Gosh, its not often I get a chance to talk about something I actually know about. The micro-organism that causes tomato blight, Phytophthora infestans, also causes potato blight, the two plants being closely related (different genera in the Solanaceae). Phytophthora behaves like a micro-fungus in many ways and is treated as such by pathologists, but taxonomically it is more closely related to the algae. It produces sporangia (microscopic sacks of spores) on the undersides of infected leaves and these break off and are blown by the wind. Thus, in the UK, blight usually starts in the west and is blown eastwards by prevailing westerly winds. If the sporangia land on wet leaves they germinate, releasing spores (zoospores) which swim (they have little projections called flagellae which thrash around), then settle down and penetrate through the leaf surface, growing within the tissues and killing them. Hence blight. Extended periods of wetness are needed for germination and infection, hence tomatoes grown under glass are not affected.

The Hungarian resistant potatoes are very good and the resistance is very strong. I'm not so sure about the resistance claimed for tomatoes, but if you cant/wont spray they are worth trying. Personally I cannot seen any problem with putting on a couple of sprays of protectant copper fungicide, and it works.

Potentially blight is everywhere, because the sporangia are airborne. If you dont get it, it may be because your plants are in a microclimate which is unfavorable for disease development, eg if they are grown against a warm brick wall this may help to keep the leaves dry.

Where does it come from? It overwinters in infected potatoes, producing sporangia in the spring. It is unusual in the genus in having airborne sporangia, most other species, of which there are many which are important pathogens, have a life cycle which is entirely waterborne.

Here endeth today's pathology lesson. Tomorrow, Honey Fungus.

[Anna]

Potentially blight is everywhere, because the sporangia are airborne. If you dont get it, it may be because your plants are in a microclimate which is unfavorable for disease development, eg if they are grown against a warm brick wall this may help to keep the leaves dry.

Thanks for most interesting post! That's exactly where I grow my tomatoes, against the brick wall of the kitchen, there is also an overhang which means normal rain (as opposed to stormy horizontal rain) never touches them. The only diseases I've had are one case of blossom end rot (which probably was my own fault re watering) and a case of mosaic virus some years back. Beans I've never had a problem with disease-wise although I gave up on broadbeans due to blackfly but I would like to ask is the old wives tale of spraying lightly with water to set beans true?
Back to tomatoes, I usually grow tried and tested old varieties such as Ailsa Craig etc., I've had success with a Marmande type but would like to try some yellow ones - any suggestions?

[umslopogaas]

Anna, I hadnt heard that particular old wives tale, but I looked it up in the RHS Veg book and they say "Warm nights can lead to failure to set pods; the traditional remedy of spraying flowers with water is usually ineffective - but may cool flowers." They do emphasise that French and runner beans need abundant water, any sign of water stress will cause a failure to set. However, setting is primarily a result of pollination by bees and the like, so as well as regular water, they need bees: cold weather depresses insect activity, so may lead to poor setting. Sounds as if they are sensitive beings, too warm and they dont set because of water stress (but that's easy enough to alleviate), too cool and they dont set because of poor pollinator activity (which you might be able to alleviate by tickling the flowers with a paint brush to do the bees' work for them).

I've never tried growing yellow tomatoes, but the RHS recommend 'Sun Baby' (small, cherry type fruit) and 'Golden Sunrise' and 'Yellow Perfection' (vine type plants). That was in 2008, I dont know if those varieties are still available. I would just go to Homebase and look at the pictures on the seed packets.

If you dont want to use insecticides on your broad beans (and legally there is practically no synthetic pesticide you could spray as an amateur gardener anyway), you can get rid of a lot of blackfly by pressure spraying with soapy water: high enough pressure to physically dislodge them, and the soap wets their cuticles and helps drown them. I dont grow broad beans (dont much like them) but my parents did and I seem to remember they just cut off the tops, which is where most of the blackfly congregate.