Talkback: Tomato blight - Page 2

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I lost all my outdoor plants to blight last year, and someone told me I can;t grow toms in that patch for 7 years. Someone else said 5 years and another 3 years! Anyone know which advice I should follow? The link to the rhs site didn;t say either.

Italophile wrote (see)

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Alina W wrote (see)

Italophile wrote (see)

Why doesn't this site's link function work?

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To make the links work:

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A link sign will light up above where you are typing immediately to the right of the smiley. Click on it

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Thanks for that, Alina. What a weirdly complicated method.

diggingdoris wrote (see)

I lost all my outdoor plants to blight last year, and someone told me I can;t grow toms in that patch for 7 years. Someone else said 5 years and another 3 years! Anyone know which advice I should follow? The link to the rhs site didn;t say either.

If it was a bona fide Blight - Early Blight, say - you can grow toms in the same spot again the next season. There will likely be fungal spores on the soil surface. Turn the soil over and bury them. I've done it many times. Fungal spores can't do any damage underground. When a new lot arrive next season - and they will, because they're everywhere, you can't avoid them - they will be airborne. They travel on any breeze.

If, on the other hand, you had one of the several tomato virus diseases, you wouldn't want to plant in the same spot again. The viral pathogens can live on in soil.

So if you're sure it was fungal, turn the soil over very well and happily plant away next season.

Green Monkey wrote (see)

I have just had my first attempt at growing anything as we moved to a house with a garden- 30 tomato plants 3 different variety's all healthy and at least 4 foot high then over the space of 4 days the all died- the leaves went brown ,the stems started going brown and the fruit all started to get brown patches then completely covered so today I dug them all up and binned them. MY question is can I grow anything else in the same spot ? I have various chilli and pepper plants next to where the toms where growing and I still have 60 to plant out from the green house- A very gutted Green Monkey

Sounds ugly, Green Monkey. Condolences. Is this what they looked like?

If so, it was Late Blight. It's about the only disease I can think of that will demolish a plant within four days. It's exactly the same disease as Potato Blight.

I'll wait for confirmation - or otherwise - before suggesting action.

Us too with the blight destroying all our outdoor (have no greenhouse here) tomato plants within days, wonder if you live in South-east UK where it has been warm & humid. Stems look exactly like your picture, Italophile. Advice please?

Rosemary, Late Blight also manifests on the foliage, resembling dirty brown watersoaked patches. Here's a good example:

If you're seeing that as well as well as the stem lesions, it's Late Blight. It's terminal, unfortunately. All you can do is remove and destroy the plants.

Hi I live in Berkshire and have lost most of my tomatoes to the dreaded blight.  Usually I grow seeds from tomatoes ive bought, but this year I bought all new named varieties so thought they would be stronger (just a thought).  Anyway I am so upset as the only plants I have left are two which I left in the greenhouse and one in a hanging basket!

Can anyone tell me if it is safe to use the soil in the tubs that my plants were in and also are there any varieties which are resistant to blight?

Thank you

Dipadee, I don't know how big your tubs are but it's a good idea to replace the soil (or mix) every year anyway. A season of growing depletes the growing medium of its nutrients and goodness. Starting a new season afresh gives the plants a healthy head start.

There a varieties coming onto the market that are being sold as blight-resistant. That doesn't mean they won't get fungal disease, just that they will - it is claimed - battle on a bit longer when they have it. Honestly, if you spray preventively, or if you don't like spraying and just observe good housekeeping practice at the least, any tomato plant will battle on against fungal disease.

In saying that, I'm talking about the most common fungal problems - Early Blight, Septoria Leaf Spot, etc. Keeping plants well spaced to aid air circulation, removing affected foliage as soon as symptoms appear, keeping the foliage dry and judiciously removing excess foliage to aid air circulation will all help. It takes a very long time for the common fungal problems (above) to kill a tomato plant.

Something like Late Blight, on the other hand, will kill a plant within a week. There's no such thing as resistance to Late Blight.