On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 11:39:38 +1000, Peter Richards
wrote:

Our new tomato plants are showing signs of dark brown and light purple
patches on the leaves, obviously blight. We prefer an organic solution
to the problem. Can someone recommend something please.

I tried the only suggested control this year for the first time. I
sprayed the plants 3 times with Bordeaux mixture.
Did it work? Not sure!
A few plants got blight anyway at the end of August ( the worst time)
but some didn't and went on cropping.
The Bordeaux mixture leaves an awful white deposit on leaves and fruit
and there was need to take all fruit home and wash it before eating.


Pam in Bristol

The message
from Peter Richards contains these words:

" Uk.rec.gardening is based in the British Isles for the discussion
of gardening within those islands.(snip)Contributors from outside the
British Isles are not discouraged but,because this newsgroup is intended
to help gardeners in the British
Isles, it should be remembered that all questions and answers should
relate to a climate similar to that found in the British Isles."

rant on
Having lived in the Philippines for a number of years, we lived on a
compound with a number of people from the "British Isles". That
included people from Wales, Scotland and England of course.

Thankyou for explaining that so clearly.

We also
worked with these people, and therefore came to know and understand
what the "climate" is in those islands. We also, during those years,
had numerous vistors from the British Isles, who further informed us
of the waether/climate. Even living back here in Oz, we have friends
either working or on holidays in various parts of the UK, who, of
course, further inform us of the climate in that area.

Hmm, ..... climate similar, yes, indeed. Where we live the climate is
similar

How interesting. Whereabouts in Australia are you living?

Janet.

In message , Bob Hobden
writes

"Tumbleweed" wrote in message after me

((snip))
As others have said, if it is "Tomato Blight" (and that's the same
disease
as Potato Blight) then any Toms that have it already should be pulled up
and
burnt, there is no organic cure for that disease.

It's pretty difficult to control once it gets established even with no
holds barred nasty chemicals. Preventative measured help a bit.

plants by spraying with "Bordeaux Mixture" which is a mixture of Copper
sulphate and Lime. Whilst not used by strict organic purists it does
appear
in organic catalogues and is used by some, especially if they have to
grow
their crop outside. Just wash the fruit well before using.


LOL. Flame coming :-) I'd really like to understand on what basis anyone
can
call such a toxic mixture of chemicals 'organic'. Whats 'organic' about
it,
precisely, other than the bizzarre fact its in an 'organic' catalogue for
historical resaons? Is that the definition of organic now?

Organic(TM) means whatever its acolytes want it to mean. Mainly it is a
slick marketing slogan to sell stuff for higher margins to the worried
well.

And ...'Just wash the fruit well before using'? What about all those ads
decrying pesticides and complaining 'why should I have to wash chemicals
off
my food before I eat it'?


Why did I have you in the frame for that flame? :-)

My Oxford English says... Organic... produced without artificial fertilizers
or pesticides.

How about Rotenone or Nicotine then - both natural and deadly. But these
days not considered to be Organic(TM) by the Soil Association.

From that it appears to be the word artificial that is crucial. Well Lime
isn't artificial really and nor is Copper sulphate so that's OK then?

Copper sulphate is artificial and nothing like a natural product. It is
every bit the result of modern industrial chemistry. Build up of copper
from spraying in the soils of wine growing regions is a cause for
concern too.

Or how about naturally occurring arsenic and lead compounds do you
really want them scattered around? There are incidentally plenty of
places where lead levels far exceed safe concentrations - doesn't bother
the plants all that much. One orchid reserve is on very toxic lead spoil
heaps.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown

In message , Peter Richards
writes
Hi Steve,

On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 18:17 +0100 (BST), (Steve
Harris) wrote:

In article ,
(Peter Richards) wrote:

Our new tomato plants are showing signs of dark brown and light purple
patches on the leaves, obviously blight.

This is a very silly time of year to be bothering about new tomato
plants unless you are a long way from the UK.

I forgot to mention that I live in Australia, and before I get flamed
for posting on a UK newsgroup, here is my rationale:

It might have been sensible to point this out earlier.

1. I searched through the newsgroups for "organic", and this one
certainly had the most postings, therefore this was the best NG to
post my question.

2. Tomatoes are, .... well, tomatoes, it doesn't matter where they
are grown (UK or Oz), and no doubt in the UK, tomato blight would be a
problem also, therefore it was this NG I was seeking an answer.

Actually you only really have a serious problem with blight if you plant
directly into the ground here. The UK is usually cold enough in summer
that tomatoes grown outdoors do not crop very well* so grow bags in a
greenhouse or ring culture in sterile soil are quite common.
(* this year was an exception)

3. Even if I lived in the UK, this would not be a 'silly' time of the
year to plant tomatoes (i.e. I may have a hothouse).

At 50-55 degrees north you have to be kidding. An established tomato
plant might just survive if you had money to burn heating the
glasshouse, but a new seedling would be hard pressed to see enough
daylight to stay alive. Artificial lighting would also be needed.

Growing them in summer in a greenhouse isn't all that cost effective
either. You get plenty of tomatoes, but at exactly the same time as the
price falls through the floor. Unusual cultivars are worthwhile.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown

The message
from Martin Brown contains these words:

/snip/
Growing them in summer in a greenhouse isn't all that cost effective
either. You get plenty of tomatoes, but at exactly the same time as the
price falls through the floor. Unusual cultivars are worthwhile.

But you can grow some of the more usual ones which are difficult to find
in shops, if not impossible.

Customer: "What variety are they?"

Greengrocer: "Dutch, luv."

I used to grow Alicante, Shirley and Ailsa Craig on a small commercial
scale. They didn't crop as heavily as Moneymaker, but they didn't taste
of damp rags. I never had enough to keep the farm gate customers
completely satisfied.

--
Rusty Hinge
horrid·squeak&zetnet·co·uk
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm

"Pam wrote in message
I tried the only suggested control this year for the first time. I
sprayed the plants 3 times with Bordeaux mixture.
Did it work? Not sure!
A few plants got blight anyway at the end of August ( the worst time)
but some didn't and went on cropping.
The Bordeaux mixture leaves an awful white deposit on leaves and fruit
and there was need to take all fruit home and wash it before eating.


I too normally use BM as we grow all our Toms outside on the allotments but
this year as we got the French variety "Ferline" from the Kitchen Garden
(Blight resistant) we grew without BM to test and had no problems with
blight even on the normal varieties we grow (Vicki, Brigade, Panovy).
Probably because we have had no rain at all, and we are still watering, in
October!

Might be worth you trying "Ferline" (very large but normal shape fruit) next
year though, they are in the catalogues for 2004. There are also some other
French varieties that are supposed to be resistant but I don't know the
names. Anyone else know them for when we go to France?

--
Regards
Bob

Use a useful Screen Saver...
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
and find intelligent life amongst the stars, there's bugger all down here.

Hi Sacha,

On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:05:18 +0100, Sacha
wrote:

in article , Peter Richards at
wrote on 10/10/03 2:39 am:

Hi,

Our new tomato plants are showing signs of dark brown and light purple
patches on the leaves, obviously blight. We prefer an organic solution
to the problem. Can someone recommend something please.

Peter, my husband used to grow tomatoes commercially for many, many years,
as did his father before him. He says he knows of no organic method (and
he's very expert on biological controls and uses them all the time in our
glasshouses)

Okay, thanks. We did try the "milk solution" for a few days, and it
did actually stop the spread of the blight. Plus I got my "LLM"
(liquid leaf mulch) onto the plants, in the hope of getting some good
natural 'food' into the plants. However, the original blight is still
there, some of it slightly less than before though. So those methods
did stop the spread, and reduce, to some degree, the original
fungus/bacteria, etc.

He says that he knows of no truly effective inorganic control,
either.
In his opinion, the only answer is to pull them out and burn them.

Yes, after at least trying to fix it, we are going to pull them out
and throw them in the rubbish bin (local council here won't let us
burn anything without a permit). We were hoping to find some remedy
and "fix" the blight completely, because the plants were a gift from
my parents, and it was a case of, ..if all else fails, then destroy
them.

Don't plant new plants in the same area.

I've been wondering it that is what caused it. When we got the plants,
I don't _think_ there was any blight (not that I checked all the
leaves though, hey, ... it was a present), and because the vegie
garden is not _quite_ ready yet (it's spring here), the plants went
into larger pots. I used soil for the pots, that came from an area
that had tomato plants last season, and some of those had the same
blight. That would seem to indicate the cause was a soil borne source,
but nothing conclusive, just my naive understanding of this.

Thanks,

Peter


Peter Richards

(but use hotmail to email)

Yes but Kay, you probably don't need to worry about kangeroos crashing
through your greenhouse windows and trampling your crop,

regards, ewald schroder

Kay Easton wrote in message ...
In article , Peter Richards
writes

If you had read all of what I had said, you would have noticed I
mentioned a hothouse. Snow, frost, daylight hours, warmth, etc,etc are
quite irrelevant in a hothouse with artificial light and heating.

Well, not quite irrelevant ;-)

It costs me a lot more to maintain my greenhouse at a cactus-friendly
temperature when there is snow and frost outside ;-)