My plants have got the lurgy!
This week I am rather sad because my veg has been afflicted by TWO serious plant diseases. On the tomato front it looks like the dreaded blight is beginning to strike. Over in the brassica bed (cabbage, sprouts, broccoli and the like), I've discovered terrible club root. I've been anxiously inspecting my plants over and over, in the hope that I've mistaken the symptoms, but it's not looking good.
Both are the stuff of nightmares to the grow your own gardener, but blight is definitely the worst of the two. It affects potatoes as well as tomatoes - in fact it was directly responsible for millions of deaths in theÌý
Irish Potato Famine - that's how evil it is. Caused by a fungus (Phytophthora infestans), it spreads through spores carried on the wind or splashed up from the soil, especially when it's muggy and humid. So the warm, windy and wet weather we've been having lately is absolutely the worst thing for it. Because I grow on an allotment, there's always a bit of disease floating around, because there's always somewhere for it to hide. And making things worse still, last year there was aÌý, so lots of spores built up.Once it gets onto a plant, brown spots spread across the leaves, stems and fruit, turning it all to mush in just a week or so. One of the very worst things about this disease is the way it strikes just when your plant is popping out loads of promising green tomatoes, which just don't get the chance to ripen before the plant is doomed. It's a good reason to make sure you "pinch out" sideshoots (link) and the topmost shoot to stop the plant growing once you've got three "trusses" or bunches of tomatoes forming. That way the plant's energy will go into ripening what you've got, hopefully in time to beat the blight.
So right now I'm crossing my fingers and desperately hoping those brownish spots on that unripe tomato are anything but the first signs of this dread disease. Please let it be insects, or very minor vandals, or a mutation, but not blight!
There's not a lot you can do about it either - there are a couple of sprays (a fungicide, mancozeb, or copper compounds for organic use), but they only slow its progress. And every last bit of blighted plant has to be utterly destroyed - preferably by burning - otherwise the fungus will hang around ready to start infecting your lovely plants next year too.
Now I'm pinning my hopes on one solitary tomato kept indoors, which I'll be very careful not to carry blight too. If you're in a similar position, treat your indoor tomatoes like people you're visiting in hospital - don't wear clothes (especially boots!) that might have infection on them, and wash your hands before touching those plants. It also helps to water only the base of the plant - that way drops of water can't fall down and splash any blight spores onto the leaves.
More on blight from these links
ÌýI won't go on about the club root (right - ugly, eh?) unless people would like me to, but I can say one thing about it. Contrary to what my boyfriend tried to convince me, eating plants affected with it will NOT give you club foot. He must think I'm born yesterday.
Hope I'm the only one suffering. If you've got any tips on dealing with blight, do let me know!
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