Growing your own - is it worth it?

[umslopogaas]

#449 doversoul, if the variety was 'Ferline', 'Legend' or 'Fantasio' according to RHS advice it will show some resistance, but will eventually succumb, especially if the weather is wet.

If you could give the tomatoes some protection from the rain, eg by growing against a wall and putting a clear polythene roof over them, that will reduce the likelihood of infection.

Strictly speaking, if Bordeaux Mixture and copper oxychloride are no longer approved for use as pesticides it would be illegal to use them, even though it is legal to hold the ingredients. Not that I think for a moment the Pesticide Safety Directorate has the resources or inclination to come checking up on private gardeners. I would be more cautious on an allotment, though, because some people have very strong views about pesticide use, even something as innocuous as Bordeaux Mixture.

Do not be tempted to use any of the stuff you can buy in Homebase for control of rose black spot, etc, on your tomatoes to control blight. Apart from being illegal, it wont work on blight, you need a special range of fungicides that are not available to amateur gardeners. If you know anyone in the farming business who can get you a fungicide containing metalaxyl, that would work on blight, but I couldnt possibly endorse such a thing, because it would be illegal to use it on amateur gardeners' crops.

[jean]

There are lots

http://www.vegetable-gardening-with-lorraine.com/bordeaux-mixture.html

You can make your own (the ingredients aren't illegal)

http://msucares.com/newsletters/pest...s/19961119.htm

Aren't both these sites from the USA?

[MrGongGong]

Aren't both these sites from the USA?

Probably

But there are ways of going about it without Bordeaux mixture

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/04/greenhouse-tomatoes-blight-alys-fowler

[doversoul1]

umslopogaas　#451
My tomatoes are all in a green house. The lack of air can be a problem but if I plant them outside, they’ll never survive their infancy. There’s so much blight about here. No fields of potatoes anywhere near, so I don’t know where it comes from, and it has definitely become worse in the last 2-3 years.

I wouldn’t make up my own spray as such. I was told about the ban by the independent garden shop I have been going for years. If they say there is no alternative they can get for me, I believe them. What a pity.

I don’t think there is any other way of going about.
Re: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...ht-alys-fowler

Washing the greenhouse (with hot water and a scrubbing brush. How very quaint ) may help to reduce damages to the leaves (of tomato plants) caused by surviving bugs and spores whereby reducing the chance of blight getting into the plants but I think the effect is negligible. Blight is airborne and ‘fresh’ every season. Even if you wash the greenhouse with neat Jeyes Fluid, when blight arrives, it makes no difference.

[gradus]

Blight will kill tomatoes even Ferline and others claimed to be resistant. A measure of protection is afforded by sprays but plants will succumb eventually if blight pressure is sustained. Covering toms can help but is not the total answer as greenhouse/polytunnel plants can also be infected. Keep an eye open for 'Smith Periods' www.blightwatch.co.uk/content/bw-Smith.asp
at these times blight is extremely likely to strike, so preventative spraying can help with toms nearing ripeness, alternatively pick early and ripen off the plant. With spuds nearing maturity lop the tops off the plants and leave the spuds in the earth for two/three weeks.

[gurnemanz]

When you dig you first potatoes, as I have just done, it is easy to answer the rubric question in the affirmative. We ate them last night with some cod braised in white wine and fresh peas. It's the first time I've grown Charlotte - small, tasty and waxy rather than floury, which I think I prefer.

[umslopogaas]

Gurnemanz, have you tried 'Pink Fir Apple' spuds? They are a salad variety, they look weird but taste delicious.

[gurnemanz]

Gurnemanz, have you tried 'Pink Fir Apple' spuds? They are a salad variety, they look weird but taste delicious.

I've seen them on market stalls but not yet tried. They tend to be a bit expensive. Thanks for nudging me towards overcoming tight-fistedness and giving them a go.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Gurnemanz, have you tried 'Pink Fir Apple' spuds? They are a salad variety, they look weird but taste delicious.

Very similar to Anyas.

[doversoul1]

I’ve been picking a colander full of peas everyday for a couple of weeks now but so far have not found a single maggot in them. What’s happened to pea moths? Comes to that, what about carrot flies? Not that I miss them but it’s odd.

Well,20th July (nearly) and still no sign of blight on the potatoes or the tomatoes. Keep my fingers crossed that this may be a blight-free year. My latest worry is the lack of flowers on the runner beans. They were terribly poor for a very long time.

[Jonathan]

Picked our first strawberries this evening - lovely! Also harvested some carrots...

[Madame Suggia]

Very similar to Anyas.

Bananyas?

[gradus]

Two blight warnings so far but no actual outbreaks reported - fingers crossed.

[Anna]

First of the runners harvested and eaten on Friday. Very variable growth rates, some still only flowers although all planted at the same time. Allotment owning neighbour gave me some of his spare french bean seeds which I bunged in a narrow patch of some newly cleared ground, 9 healthy plants came up but - alas - they're climbing french rather than dwarfs! I have no spare poles and they're in an impossible site for constructing any sort of frame being hemmed in by paving on one side and a change of level on the other, (I assumed they'd be neat little bushes) I wonder if I can dig and transplant them? Otherwise I'll have to reduce them to 3 plants and beg or borrow one stick for each. Ho hum, the joys of gardening .... Tomatoes not brilliant, lack of sustained sunshine I guess, heavy crop on Alicante, other varieties very slow to set fruit, Shirley is still sickly.

[gradus]

Anna, try pinching out the leaders as they grow, you'll encourage the plants to keep sending out more and (hopefully) end up with very bushy semi-dwarf plants.
Rabbits (unbidden) perform this service for me on my climbing beans and it is very effective in providing low easy to pick crops!