August 9, 2009
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It’s the BLIGHT! It’s the BLIGHT!
I am very sad. I am truly sad. I just discovered tonight that my tomatoes have the blight. I did not even realize there was a pandemic tomato blight striking the northeast. My mom asked me about my tomatoes just yesterday, and I bragged about how big they were and how many tomatoes I had. She said all her friends’ plants were wiped out by the blight.
Tonight, I went to look at them and discovered a bunch of brown leaves. Huh? Not enough water? No, we’ve had PLENTY of rain, believe me. Later, we were chatting with a neighbor who spoke of the tomato blight wiping out his plants in 48 hours and how the fungus can live in the soil for three years and how it can travel 40 miles via wind (so says Penn State’s Ag Department).
With trepidation, I asked, “What does it look like?”
He proceeded to describe the current state of my tomato plants.I am very sad. I’ve only had four tomatoes.
(This is not my garden, but it may as well could be. Sigh.)
Comments (16)
Mine look like that, too, and I live in Indiana. Everyone’s tomatoes here look awful and we are not getting many. I had no idea this was blight! Bummer!
Oh, this really stinks! I love– dearly love–fresh tomatoes, and since we moved I haven’t been able to grow them because we’re too shady and have lots of deer who eat them. Even the ones I planted immediately outside the back door once so that the deer wouldn’t get them didn’t ripen. I think that year I got two or three misshapen blobs off of two plants. So I feel your pain! Anyway…I always hope that others will have lots to share with me, so I guess that’s not looking too great at this point.
Or maybe the blight will miss Michigan…we can hope! In any case, MI tomatoes are not quite as good as they were in IN anyway…I think hot sunshine makes them better.
I am so sorry friend! The tomatoes here in OK look great~perhaps the Lord is telling you to come and visit (smile)~
Harris’s arrived last night late, and are still sleeping, so I have a household of EAGER children ready to pounce once one of their doors is cracked open. Fun fun~
I’m growing tomatoes, and no blight has blighted them. But they are very small. Instead of regular tomatoes, they’re more like cherry tomatoes. Oh well. They’re still tomatoey.
You’re not alone I got one baby tomato, that’s it!
@rjdohner -
You didn’t get the blight, though, did you?
Not quite sure if it was blight, the heat or my pots, but I only had one lone tomato. All my other plants died too, so I think it was just the South Texas climate.
Pick ‘em and let them ripen in the sun!
@i_was_there_and_back_again -
Will they? They are so little and green.
@TeacherPerson -
Well, I guess it depends on how little they are….and if they are kept in a place where they can ripen and yet not attract bugs. What have you got to lose?
Oh dear–I’ll be out to check my plants tomorrow.
That is ever so sad. Home-grown tomatoes are yummy (and I don’t usually like tomatoes)
P.S. The Flobots are a band with lots of political lyrics. That poem was about as close to political as I’ve ever gotten. I also used some of there more favorite words and rhymes like “land” and “understand.” When I wrote it I could kind of hear it being rapped Flobots-style broken up by a trumpet solo halfway in.
It’s too rainy & cool up here for our tomatoes to ripen. We’ve only had warm weather the last 2 weeks. I’ve been buying my fresh tomatoes from luckier folks. But I have not heard about a blight. I’m sorry for your loss……
I’m so sorry. That’s awful, not only for you but the entire Northeast. I love tomatoes, and none are better than those who grew red on the vine in the sun.
That IS a sad story! Sorry for your loss.
We’ve been busy getting ready for and going back to school. I told someone earlier, even the dog is in a bad mood!
I think I would still let the plants try to make it. I grew an heirloom variety this year that succumbed early to fusarium wilt or some such thing. I was going to take it out, but didn’t get to it and it is growing new shoots and setting fruit. Two more of my tomatoes are diseased, but we will keep on harvesting and give them a chance. It reminds me of one of my favorite James Herriot stories, about a calf with brain damage that caused her to walk in circles… do you know the one?