This topic contains 13 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by Big D 8 years, 8 months ago.
-
Posts
-
Its only the last week here that rain has really set in and suddenly I am finding a few blighted leaves on tomatoes undercover, while the Sarpo potatoes are fine, ready for harvest soon.
Yes great for the celery family, and I am not seeing much slug presence, yet.I only have one tomato plant this year, a bush with largish fruits, Tumbler I think. It has thus far no sign of blight. I’ve seen in past years that bush toms including Maskotka and Tumbling Tom (tasteless) were pretty much blight free. Maybe bush ones are more resistant, or maybe the fact that they were all in pots against an exposed but warm south facing wall helps. I suppose I should try a vine or two against the wall to see. It could be that humidity from the soil is the key, and an exposed location is better.
Blight came to NW London mid month, so I chopped the haulms off my Desiree maincrop two weeks early. A brief scrabble shows good sized potatoes just under the surface, so they are hardening until full moon is past prior to a harvest early September. Like Charles, the Sarpos are still healthy in 35 litre pots where I have tried using home compost rather than garden centre stuff.
We too have finally had good rainfall here, such that the soil is finally damp again at 1 pot depth as I planted out rocket and chard for autumn/spring yesterday. The beans are finally giving a daily handful of 40-50 beans (climbing French and runners combined).
The swedes have enjoyed the rain hugely, as have the June carrots. Something has started nibbling at pak choi, but the spinach and turnip are currently spared.
I had a Maskotka grow spontaneously in my parsnips -clearly the compost had seeds in it! I left it and it has one good truss of full size fruit and no blight. It shows we aren’t hot enough to grow outdoors from seed at high yield, I guess…
Yep it has certainly turned in to a slug fest over the last few days here in Bedfordshire! I do occasionally use organic slug pellets around particularly vulnerable sowings (currently winter radish). Also try to patrol a couple of times a week with a knife to cut up any that I find. However I have lost most of my rocket seedlings in trays as I missed a snail hiding in my grow house 🙁
Thankfully no tomato blight yet!Bluebell there is something about Bedfordshire slugs because in June a gardener from there came on a course and remarked on her enormous slugs, at a time when there were none here…
I hope you prevail.Charles it is not so much the big ones that are getting me this year (think I have killed most of them) I am plagued wit very tiny ones that are blooming difficult to find but still do a lot of damage!
Having just looked it up I assume that the start of the recent wet spell created a slug orgy – apparently lay 300 eggs at a time that hatch in 2 weeks and are ready to breed in 3 months….So an up hill task I thinkHmm that sounds bad, I wonder where they were hiding in the dry weather, is there damp habitat nearby?
Here touchwood I am finding only moderate damage and only to the most susceptible plants e.g. Freckles lettuce, and only to plants near to larger, overgrowing ones like ocaThere are the usual field ditches and compost heaps and I am currently getting some additions from an overgrown plot but apparently they are very good at moving deep in to the soil to keep moist enough.
I live in Essex and haven’t grown tomatoes for about 3 years due to blight each year but this year I though I would try again. I had five plants, two of which were San Marzana, Italian plum tomatoes, which I have never grown before, and what a revelation! I have had so many and they were so large even though we had so much dry weather. I am busy making passata like crazy to keep up! So far the tomatoes are holding up against blight. Evidently Italian chefs only use these tomatoes for passata!! If you haven’t tried them, do give them a go next year as they make delicious bolognese sauce.
What a great result. I think you have had more warmth and dry weather in Essex than in Western Britain and enough to make the difference – I tried San Marzano a few years back and it was not fabulous, even undercover.
I do like the thought of all that passata!BigD
Did you grow your tomatoes out of doors/in pots without polytunnel/greenhouse?
I’d love to have a go next year if you did, I’ve always thought that it wouldn’t be really worth it without a polytunnel though. Maybe you have proved me wrong?
Hi Rhys and Charles
I grew them in the open on a raised bed on my allotment with no protection at all – using the no dig method of course.
We did have a very dry, hot, sunny period for a long time until recently. We couldn’t push canes in the ground as it was so hard! Why not give them a go next year and hopefully you will get a lovely crop too.
They are still coming and I am making more passata! I am now bringing the under ripe tomatoes home to finish on the window sill, it only takes 2-3 days. As I had such full bunches of tomatoes and each tomato is quite large, they are all touching each other and some are a bit buried so thought it best to finish ripening this way giving the others a chance to see the sun – when it comes out now!!
But who knows, next year will probably be different again!
I started the harvesting earlier this year with losing all my broad beans to a sudden appearance of a swarm of black fly then I lost my garlic and onions to white rot so not a good beginning. But, since then everything has gone well. It seems each year the weather favours certain crops and not others and it is a surprise or challenge every year.
This is the first year I have had the allotment fully cultivated and managed to get a Commendation for it!
Give it a try Rhys next year and I hope you get lucky with the weather. It is worth trying but I always had in the back of my mind that I would probably get blight so it was a bit unexpected that it never happened.
Good luck and let us know how you fare.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.