What is blight you ask? Well, I might have asked the same question a mere week ago, when only days before my garden was green and lush, tomato branches weighed down with literally hundreds of giant green tomatoes, waiting for the sun to ripen them. One lone plant in the very back corner of the garden looked a bit sickly, with brown and white spots on the leaves and stems. I didn't give it a second thought until a few days later when I walked back to the garden to find every single other plant with the same disease. Only later did I find out it was blight. My hundreds of green tomatoes?
Rotten.... seemingly overnight. Covered with mold spots, both red and green tomatoes alike.
Not only my tomato plants, but it's spread to my cucumber and zucchini plant too. I surprised myself with reaction I had at this nasty blight. Not anger, a bit of sadness maybe, but an overwhelming sense of relief that this little garden of mine was just a hobby, and not my lifeline for the winter as it was to my ancestors. Just weeks before I had bought a steam canner and lots of jars to can my bushels of tomatoes (remember when my garden looked like this?)
I'm off to buy large garbage bags to bag all the tomatoes and plants, because this blight? You don't want it to stay in the soil for next year.... They say a hard freeze should kill the spores, but I don't want to take any chances.
Still... blight blows.
4 comments:
Oh so sad! I'm hoping that the cool summer means a warm winter. We'll see....I guess the good news is, summer will be here before we know it and you'll get to start all over again.
oh man, blight DOES blow. That's especially annoying because of how many plants you had...not just one or two, but TWELVE!
better luck next year I suppose :)
I'm sorry! I know how much you love fresh garden tomatoes. The snails had a great feast on our tomatoes!
I would have cried. Cried. But your perspective is healthy. Thank goodness your family won't starve through the winter. But, I would have still cried.
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