"Gill Matthews" wrote after "Phil" replied to
"Bob Hobden" who wrote
snip....................

Having never grown Toms in grow bags I can't answer that except that
they
are usually placed in a sheltered warm spot unlike the open garden. We
always grow ours out on the allotment in normal soil and have late but
have excellent crops usually, this year due to the constant rain only
one
variety has not succumbed to Blight.


Thanks Bob and others for informative response.

Bob, what are the signs of blight?
I have noticed that some leaves on my toms look brown (maybe wind burnt?)
around the edges.
These are the ones in grow bags so I think it unlikely that they will
have
suffered too much from water logged roots (if that is the cause of
blight).
The leaves have also gone a bit leathery-looking.
But I have a few promising looking tresses (sp) of toms.
My location is on top of a hill, though surounded by housing, so it does
get
a bit windy even in the more sheltered corner I use for veg.

Late blight ( the bad one) causes big brown blotches all over the leaves
and
stems and tomatoes which may addtionally get whitish fur. Early blight
(not so bad)
gives yellowish patches with brown in them. If you are not sure, try
google images
search tomato blight and you will get some pictures to compare.

Late Blight (commonly just called Blight) needs wet/damp leaves to get a
hold on the plants , it is rain born and the only thing you can do is to try
to prevent it by spraying all parts of the plant with Bordeaux Mixture
(Copper sulphate and Lime) and re-spraying if it's washed off by the rain.
Once the plant has the disease it's too late and you need to pull it up and
destroy it, any set tomatoes will only rot. Usually the plant gets Dark
Brown/ Black patches on leaves and stems which spread all over the plant
including any fruit and the whole plant simply collapses. Also affects
potatoes as they are the same family (think of the Irish Potato Famine) and
the spuds rot in the ground if you don't dig them up quickly.
There are resistant varieties like "Ferline" tomatoes (I'm told there are
others too, anyone?), and all Sarpo varieties of potatoes.

Our Ferline toms are the only ones not to have got blight already this year
which proves something.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
17mls W. of London.UK