Tomatoes in the northeast...

[ironglow]

  Tomatoes are the central thing I plant a garden for. the last couple years have been a tomato disaster for many of us in the northeast.
  Primarily, they have been cool, wet summers..not what I call best for tomato production..

   The real %&*^$#* problem has been the tomato blight. If the early one didn't wipe you out, the late one probably did !

  If you were struck with this blight, what are your plans to counter it next season ?


      

[Graybeard]

Well I do live in the northeast, OK NE Alabama 

There are blight resistent strains and if it's a real problem using them might help. What might help more tho is be sure to rotate your crops and don't plant tomatos in the same place they were last year and best not even where they were in two years. Not always do able if you have limited space. A raised bed helps to reduce the impact of too much rain and keeping the tomatos off the ground is an absolute must down here.

Blossum end rot and worms are the biggest problems I face. I think I have a handle on the rot but the worms wow they were bad last year.

[ironglow]

  Thanks Bill;
    Thank you for your advice.. I thought that ugly blight was confined to the northeast corner of the country, but I guess you got slammed in the south also. I guess I will try to grow some in raised beds...and go toward "bush" type tomatoes to try to keep leaves off the ground...even though I prefer the "indeterminate" or old fashioned spreading plants for flavor and everbearing ability.
   For the first time..last year I made myself a inverted planter with a 5 gal pail. and planted a "Supersweet 100" cherry type in it. This plant seemed to resist the blight better than any other type or variety in the garden, including ground planted Supersweet 100s. As I see it, this confirms your plan of keeping them off the ground.
      If you can think of any fairly blight resistant varieties (good for zone 5), I would appreciate you tell me.
                                                                                             Thanks again.......Ironglow

[mirage1988]

GB-
I was told not to till the vines under if you had blight because that will make it carry over to the next year- any truth to that?

[84Jim]

As long as we're talking about blights, does anybody know if the tomato blight also killed thier cousin, the potato?  It seemed my bushes died about a month earlier than usual, and my potatos were less and smaller than past years.  Just curious...

Jim

[Graybeard]

I always pull up my tomato plants as soon as I pull the last tomato from them each year and try to get as many of the roots as possible. I then burn them way away from the garden area. Same for potato plants. I'd never turn them under.

[charles p]

I order several variety of seeds and start a dozen or so plants every two to three weeks.  This way I have replacements for plants that don't grow for whatever reason, and I get tomatoes until late in the year.  I fact, I picked eight tomatoes just before Christmas.  When I came home a few days later, we had experienced our first frost at the rest is history.

Last year we made the mistake of using a non-permanent marker when we wrote the variety of each seed on a marker stick.  After about a month outside, I didn't know what I had planted.

You should send in a soil sample now so that you can lime your garden if necessary.

[ironglow]

 Potatoes and tomatoes both from the nightshade family..so I don't doubt it may be the very same blight.

  GB..I had blossom end rot for a time..adequate water, so I used bone meal (in with the roots when I planted)..seemed to do the job.

[Graybeard]

My reading indicated lack of calcium is the primary reason for blossum end rot. The suggestions were to add Tums or lime so I used BOTH. Didn't have anymore blossum end rot after that.

[boondocker]

GB-
I was told not to till the vines under if you had blight because that will make it carry over to the next year- any truth to that?

Our Pa State Agg Center said to remove and burn all tomato plants as the spore can live if tilled under, so thats what I did.

[ironglow]

  Tomatoes with any resistance to blight are hard to find. I searched the web for quite a while and found a total of four possible varieties, two of them, both hybrids... only seem to be available in the UK. The two available this side of the pond are apparently non-hybrids but have a natural resistance.
   Anyway, Totally Tomatoes carries both: their #00426 "Legend" and their #00518 "Old Brooks". They are not completely "immune" from blight, but offer some resistance..."a fighting chance".     I ordered them both.   

  Here's Totally Tomatoes...     

 http://www.totallytomato.com/sp.asp?c=37
 

[ironglow]

  For UK gardeners, should they need them..Thompson & Morgan have seeds for "Ferline" and "Legend"..

    http://www.seeds.thompson-morgan.com/seeds1/group/tomato.html

[ironglow]

 Correction; Looks like Thompson & Morgan are available here in the US...  Jackson, NJ

 
http://www.tmseeds.com/
   

[Drilling Man]

Potatoes and tomatoes both from the nightshade family..so I don't doubt it may be the very same blight.

  GB..I had blossom end rot for a time..adequate water, so I used bone meal (in with the roots when I planted)..seemed to do the job.

  Yup, it gets them both, big time!  It also got my pickles too.

  I removed all the tomato plants and took then waaaaaaay back to the edge of my property.  Town folks here were told to bag them and put them in the trash.

  I also didn't fall till that spot, as the blight can have some winter kill to it if left on top.  Lastly, i'm rotating my tomatoes to a different garden this spring JUST to make sure!  I'll plant sweetcorn where the tomatoes were.

  DM

[ironglow]

 Yes; I'm going to rotate crops also, and I did leave the soil untilled...hoping for as much winter-kill of the blight as possible. Yes, my cukes suffered also. seems like only the root crops were not so adversely affected (don't plant potatoes).
   I am having a bit of a quandary, wondering exactly how much blame to put on the blight and how much blame to place on cool, wet summers..both of which we have been hit with the last 2-3 years..in spite of "global warming".

[bearmgc]

I think the cool, wet summer had alot to do with certain crops. The first time in prolly 10 years I had a poor pepper crop, both banana and green. No blight in sight.

[ironglow]

 Right bear,  as I said in my above post, seems like only the root crops did fair..not good but fair..peas, beans, squash, peppers etc were well below par, so I had an idea much was the cold, wet weather.

[gypsyman]

I didn't have much in the way of blight. I always rotate my garden, never put anything in the same place 2 years in a row. But, I always use tomatoe cages, and get the fruit up off the ground. Seems like my plants produce a week to 2 weeks after my neighbor, who never puts his up. He gets more tomatoe's than me, but then he's retired, and probably spends twice as much time caring for his garden. Living close to Lake Erie, seems like I plant later, but I'll get tomatoes sometimes into November. This last year, we didn't get a killing frost till first week of Nov. Had a couple fresh 'maters on the salad for Thanksgiving.
Just started to freeze them, and pulled a couple out and put them in a crock pot of chili today. gypsyman

[ironglow]

  Shucks;
  I live far enough from Lake Erie..not to get the extended season benefit..but still close enough to put me in the it's "snow belt"..

[Drilling Man]

  Speaking of tomato cages...

  You need to "de-blight" them before using them again too.  I've heard of several ways to do this, but a friend of mine has the easiest way.  He stuff's them loosly full of newspaper, and lights the paper at the bottom, letting it burn out.

  DM

[gypsyman]

DM, never thought of that. Thanks. Will do that in the spring. gypsyman

[longwinters]

In Michigan's U.P we only had a handful of nights that were above 60 last year.  I always buy seed and start my own plants in the basement...I have a small yard/garden.  I typically plant 17-23 tomato plants, 2-15' rows of green beans, 4 summer squash plants and 7-8 winter squash plants.  I also have assorted strawberries, blueberries, rasberries and about 12 asperagus. With the wild flowers we sow to attrack bees there is only enough grass in the yard for the dog to walk on "trails" and do his duty   

Last 2 years everything did good except the tomatos.  I buy tomato seed for short season gardens, so I never go with tomatos that need more than 65 days ( so I go with mostly determinent plants, but some indeterminent also).  Some are only 55 days.  Even then last year I only got 35 qts of tomatos (Plus what we ate fresh).  The year before 50 qts. Two years ago I got 100 qts off of 17 plants.  I use "red plastic mulch" around my tomatos for 2 reasons.  1 is that tomatos like red.  Several universities have proven that red will give you more and bigger tomatos.  Also plastic will help keep the ground warmer, hold moisture in or out as you need it and all the leaves and tomatos that fall off will be on the mulch and not on the ground.

Probably the best thing that I do is "plant" a 2 Ltr pop bottle beside each tomato plant.  The bottle has the top cut off so that water and fertilizer can be put in and it has small holes punched in the bottom at root level so the water and feed go right to the roots.  Even as bad as last year was, people walking by marveled at what I had compared to what their plants looked like.  I know this would probaby be considered too expensive or too much work for some, expecially those of you lucky enough to have  enough land to have a real garden.  But living in town its the best I can do.

Long

[bearmgc]

I definitely like the idea of the 2 liter pop bottles for ready delivery of fertilizer.

[Cornbelt]

Nobody mentioned a cure for tomato worms, but we raised some tobacco one year and the worms left the tomatos alone. Cigars had holes though.

[ironglow]

  I don't smoke, but I can see where if I did I would take up the pipe and "grow my own" somehow. I was checking out at a little nearby store last night and noticed the cigarettes behind the counter..all between $7 and $8 per pack ! Then here in the "people's republic of NY" one can add 8% "sales tax".
  ..But I suppose the fat politicians have plugged the loop hole for self-sufficient folks..probably have made it illegal to grow your own tobacco.

[ohio_boy]

Nobody mentioned a cure for tomato worms, but we raised some tobacco one year and the worms left the tomatos alone. Cigars had holes though.

There isn't a "cure" so to speak, except for rotation, and picking off the worms...or shooting them off with a BB gun   BUT, if you ever see a worn with a bunch of little white spines sticking up along it's back LEAVE IT ALONE, and let it continue to eat.  It won't eat for very long, and then you will have a bunch of Braconid wasps at work in your garden.  You will see a little damage, but not very many worms after that. 

Always rotate, and keep some leaves in a corner of the garden to use under your nightshades as leaf mold.  This will help keep soil borne diseases off the plants, and are good for the soil, too!!

[steg]

After getting hit with the blight a few years in a row, I started a light spraying of captain, it's a fungicide, and I haven't had a problem since I started, Neighbors are still getting hit with it, so It must be doing something good...............steg

[BCB]

I am uncertain that there is a cure for this particular blight.  Leaving the areas that are infected lay unplanted for a couple of years is probably your best bet.  Cleaning up these areas is a must...

There is not a spray that will kill it as far as I know. And I don't think there is a "blight resistant" species of tomato for this particular blight.  Only about ¼ of my garden was infected last year.  The other 3/4 did mostly well.  I have several friends who lost entire crops--say 5-6 dozen plants...

I plant my tomatoes in 2 different gardens to try to avoid the attack at one or the other.  Hopefully both...

This blight is a scourge.  I am sure the chemical companies are working on a spray and maybe they have one.  But for now it is just “good-luck” and hope for the best…

And so it goes…BCB

[Bob Riebe]

I use Serenade to control all my blights and have had tremendous results.

I use it both on vegetable and flow

I had pumpkins one year that had blight bad to the point an area four feet across the leaves were solid brown from the blight.x I made up ten gallons of Serenade mix SOAKED the area, and the blight moved no further.

The concentrate cost 17 bucks a quart, plus or minus a buck, depending where you get it, so I found and bought commercial size two and one-half gallon jugs which cost 100 bucks.
The may seem a lot till you figure, seventeen times ten quarts equals 170 bucks.
I got it from Countryside Gardens, the only place I know of that sells it on-line.
Bob

[ironglow]

  Who makes "serenade"..Ortho..Monsanto..whom ?