"Stephen" wrote
Has anyone else been caught by blight this year? I'm in Staffordshire.
I had some tomato plants outside and one day they were green with
small fruit on and the next day they were like brown skeletons. I
presume that is blight? I could not find any good descriptions or
photos of blight on the internet to confirm this.

A week or so later my potatoes started to look a bit sorry for
themselves; they had gone from lots of tall green foliage to green
foliage lying down that looked more bare, and then the stems changed
from green to brown. I tried to harvest the potatoes before it spread
into the tubers but they had not been growing for long, so I only got
small new potato-sized potatoes. I noticed the original tubers that I
planted were brown and rotten and just a squishy mess. Is that blight?
I'll look into growing the tomatoes in a greenhouse next year and a
more blight resistant variety of potatoes.



Sounds like Blight although a bit quick IME, perhaps you missed the early
signs. The old potato going mushy is normal, it's when the new main crop
potatoes go the same way and smell alarmingly you know you have a serious
case of the Blight. Once you smell blighted potatoes you never forget it.

Yes we have already suffered with Blight this year despite the very dry
weather. Some self sown cherry tomatoes got it a week or so ago and were
grubbed up and destroyed. Our main tomatoes are all blight resistant (
Ferline, Fantasio and Crimson Crush), we don't even try to grow any other
types these days.
No sign of it on the potatoes, two of ours are also blight resistant Sarpo
varieties.


--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK