On Sep 12, 10:39*am, Jeff Layman wrote:
On 12/09/2011 08:10, harry wrote:

On Sep 11, 9:21 pm, "Pete *wrote:
Not been to allotment for a few days. Went this morning expecting to pick a
lot of toms. A sad sight met my eyes, all tom plants dead/dying and fruit
rotting! A wander around the site showed similar on almost every plot. One
lady said she thought there was a cold night last week.....but frost? Am
depressed....all that hard work wasted.
Pete C

Trying to grow tomatoes outdoors is a waste of time. You only get a
short season *and the blight takes hold sooner than with a greenhouse..

Indeed it does. *For the first time in over 15 years I thought I might
try growing some tomatoes (and sweet peppers) again as the greenhouse is
more-or-less empty in summer.

So I got some Gardener's Delight and Sweet Romano pepper seeds and
germinated those months ago. *No problems. *I even had enough plants so
that some of the GD went outside the greenhouse, and some in.

But what a waste of time, especially with the lousy "summer". *The
outside GD got blight a couple of weeks ago and I've dumped the plants
in the compost bin. *Nice lot of green tomato chutney though! *One of
the plants inside the greenhouse is just starting to show blight, so
I'll cut those down in the next day or so. *And the tomatoes I've had so
far? *Not a patch on the GD I remember for taste, and a lot bigger too.
* My neighbour had some of my spare plants, and had bought some GD
plants separately. No difference between them AFAICT. *What is going on
with GD?

The peppers are just ripening in the greenhouse, and I haven't tasted
them yet. *I don't have high hopes after the tomato experience. :-(

--

Jeff

The trick I fancy is to keep the humidity low in the greenhouse with
plenty of ventilation. The blight loves humidity.
Also to avoid open soil beds, also adds to humidity. I have gravel and
rings.