"Alan Holmes" wrote in message
...

"jane" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 24 Sep 2006 12:45:14 GMT, "Alan Holmes"
wrote:

~
~A number of my tomatoes have developed some sort of fungus, the leaves
have
~started to change colour and some of the fruit are covered with fine
white
~stuff, I have dug themall out and put them in the dustbin rather than on
the
~compost heap.
~
I hate to say this but that sounds like late blight... if the blighted
fruit stay in humid conditions then they rapidly go mouldy, with white
fluffy hairs.

Well it certainly has been humid around here for a while, all the rain
we've had!

We've had nine Smith periods in the last 14 days... perfect
conditions.

I wonder what a 'smith period' is?

Last year I bought some tom plants from a car boot and they suffered from
~the same problem, which spread to the plants I had grown from seed, the
toms
~in the greenhouse were fine, although when I stopped watering them the
~leaves there started to go a funny colour, which I put down to the fact
that
~they were dying off anyway.
~
~So what is the answer to this problem?
It's the weather. It gets warm and humid, the airborne spores
germinate, bye bye tomatoes and potatoes. Indoors offers a bit of
protection.

You have worried me about the potatoes, they seem to be sufferng in the
same way, but I had put that down to it being the end of the season and
that they were dying normally.

This site may explain
Late Blight of Potatoes and Tomatoes
http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.corne...to_LateBlt.htm