"kate" wrote

Steve Young wrote:

"kate" wrote

For fertilizing, I tend to stick with compost and manure and/or herbal
teas. I tried to cure tomato blight with garlic tea one year - didn't
work entirely, but I had tomatoes to sell into August so who knows?

Kate, something I've experimented with on the tomato blight, with great
success, is spraying the foliage/plant with ionic silver. A human
friendly, and very potent fungicide. I believe if I'm consistent with
applications, I might be able to get it knocked down almost entirely.
Though before you think, *oh my*, 30$ a gallon spraying 30 plants at
about 2 gallons an application, check this out for ionic silver, (at
about a dollar a gallon). It's the Collgen2 I use to make a 6 PPM
solution. http://www.health2us.com/colloid.htm Fred Peschel has
really designed an impressive little unit that works a treat and is
not unreasonably expensive. I also use the silver to treat a well and
it is 100% effective at eliminating bacteria in the water system.
Ionic silver is a real cure.

Thanks fr the idea, Steve. Maybe I'll get the starter bottle for next
season and see how it does before I make the bigger investment.

Basically Kate, I wanted to throw out the idea because tomato blight is a
real heart breaker when you have a really nice crop coming along and you see
the fungus beginning to consume the plants. I know there are several
chemical treatments, but I and others here are trying to minimize chemical
use, if not eliminate it all together. I've noted you subscribe to this
interest as well. You might have noticed that the site I linked also
discusses ionic silver and health. That's actually how I came to learn of
this product, and then discovered its benefits in agriculture and as a well
water disinfectant. ... course I began dabbling with it.

For many years we had a stinkin ole well that only reacted to chlorine
shocks and then only for a short time before the the bacteria would return.
Each time it would be worse than it was before. I guess it was because the
well had been neglected many years before I moved here. After about 2 years
of silver treatment, our water is some of the freshest smelling and tasting
mineral water around. I feel silver got right down to the root of the
problem and knocked it out. I do continue a regular maintenance
amount.

I was planning on letting the tomato crop rest a year but maybe...have you
tried treating the soil itself so would that be basicly polluting the
soil?

The sad thing about the blight is that the disease will live in the soil for
many years before it finally dies. I think I've read 7 or 8. So yes, you're
right that killing it in the soil, where it lives, would be advantageous.
However, it's hard to imagine even 1 or 2 years without tomatoes, let alone
7 or 8. Moving the planting around to different parts of the garden will
help, but I don't have 8 separated spaces large enough

No, ionic silver at 6 PPM would not effect the soil with any harmful
contamination, ... *except* that it may kill soil microbes as well as the
funguses. Soil microbes are efficient microbes (EM) when it comes to
delivering minerals to the plants. Composting generates many of these
microbes naturally from a varied feedstock. I wonder if one could, in the
fall, spray a couple gallons on an infected area and till it in. Then in the
early spring work in a good load of compost. Here's an EM jump start if one
desired : http://www.scdworld.com/shop/product...duct_id=040101

If you'd like to try ionic silver, I'd be happy to make up a few gallons
for you and several requesters, for the cost of shipping from NE Ohio.
Anyone interested, un-munge my email and send me a hey.
I'll do a dozen or 2 gallons.

Steve Young