New England Gardener

Went out to the garden (da-da-da-da-DA)
In search of a treat
But instead of tomatoes
I’ve got fungus to eat
I’ve got the Summer of 09, Late Blight Tomato Blues
And it’s bringin’ me down….

I’ve tried to move on. Really. I have. But the truth is I mourn the loss of my tomatoes every time I walk in the garden. There may be gardeners who love their vegetables equally. I’m not one of them. Tomatoes are the reason I grow a garden. All that other green stuff is just there to keep the tomatoes company.

And this Late Blight outbreak pushed me to do something I’m not proud of–purchase a non-organic product. Let me explain. I do most of my growing at my community garden which is strictly organic, but I had a few straggly leftover seedlings that were on their way to the compost pile. You know how gardeners hate to throw away plants, so at the last minute I stuck them in an old apple barrel planter in my driveway. I pretty much ignored them all summer UNTIL, I lost all my other tomato plants. Suddenly, those two plants became my only hope for home grown tomatoes.

Because of their isolation, they escaped the blight until two weeks ago when I noticed the tell-tale lesions on the bottom branches. Rather than pull them, I’ve been pruning the diseased foliage, and yes, spraying once a week with a non-organic fungicide. (active ingredient: Chlorothalonil)

And today, I harvested my first “illicit” tomato, sliced with cukes and hummus on whole grain bread. I’m not proud of this harvest, but I did enjoy my sandwich.

This brings me to a question posed by a gardener the other day asking if I knew of any blight resistant varieties. I can tell you anecdotally, that at the community garden, cherry tomato plants seemed to fare better than standard plants. I observed that the foliage got infected, but the fruits survived. Food for thought. I’ve also been reading about a new variety called Mountain Magic that’s supposed to be resistant to both Early and Late blight. It will be available in 2010 seed catalogs.

I’m also passing on a thought provoking op-ed piece about Late Blight from restaurateur and farmer Dan Barber. He makes an interesting connection between disease and renewed interest in home vegetable gardens. In no way is he trying to discourage folks from gardening, just explaning how the blight seemed to sneak up on us this summer. I’ll do a bit more research on blight resistant varieties, while enjoying the rest of my tomatoes.