Joel_BC
Super Self-Sufficient
Late blight has come through our region in dampish years. It was quite widespread in 2010, and maybe even more so in 2011 (when we lost all our tomatoes and potatoes to it).
I feel like knocking on wood, but we seem to have been able to overcome our blight problems this year - even though it's been the kind of cool, damp year that promotes blight. And even though we grew our potatoes in the same garden (only 25 feet away) from where they got it last year. And grew our tomatoes in the same beds in the greenhouse as last year.
Our approach was to choose potatoes that are supposed to be blight-resistant and also resistant varieties of tomatoes (Early Girl and Legend, both indeterminate or vine-type that yield "slicer" tomatoes). We also used used an organic bacterial soil-drench product (Actinovate is the trade name). We used it for watering the tomato seedlings that we started, and then later drenched the beds when we transplanted the tomatoes into the main soil of the greenhouse. The bacteria are said to consume the fungus that causes the blight.
Out in our big garden, I bathed each of the seed potatoes in an Actinovate solution, and then took the remainder of the solution and watered each row of holes I'd planted the spuds in, after covering the seed potatoes over.
Also - separate issue - we've made some headway against the clubroot (caused by a soil slime mold) that had reduced our brocolli and cauliflowers to shrunken heads. We used a different organic bacterial innoculation, sold under the trade name Serenade. The brocolli has done quite well this year, though the treatment did not seem to benefit the cauliflower plants quite as much. But the results are impressive enough that I think we'll use Serenade next year, with higher expectations. More of the good micro-organisms will be established by next season.
I feel like knocking on wood, but we seem to have been able to overcome our blight problems this year - even though it's been the kind of cool, damp year that promotes blight. And even though we grew our potatoes in the same garden (only 25 feet away) from where they got it last year. And grew our tomatoes in the same beds in the greenhouse as last year.
Our approach was to choose potatoes that are supposed to be blight-resistant and also resistant varieties of tomatoes (Early Girl and Legend, both indeterminate or vine-type that yield "slicer" tomatoes). We also used used an organic bacterial soil-drench product (Actinovate is the trade name). We used it for watering the tomato seedlings that we started, and then later drenched the beds when we transplanted the tomatoes into the main soil of the greenhouse. The bacteria are said to consume the fungus that causes the blight.
Out in our big garden, I bathed each of the seed potatoes in an Actinovate solution, and then took the remainder of the solution and watered each row of holes I'd planted the spuds in, after covering the seed potatoes over.
Also - separate issue - we've made some headway against the clubroot (caused by a soil slime mold) that had reduced our brocolli and cauliflowers to shrunken heads. We used a different organic bacterial innoculation, sold under the trade name Serenade. The brocolli has done quite well this year, though the treatment did not seem to benefit the cauliflower plants quite as much. But the results are impressive enough that I think we'll use Serenade next year, with higher expectations. More of the good micro-organisms will be established by next season.
