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17 August 2009

Our tomatoes have blight and I am so sad. [More:]Farking English "summer" weather. Since January, we have been looking forward to harvesting these heirloom varieties, and now... well, it don't look so good. Hope y'all's gardens are faring well.
My partner's mini-garden on the deck got raided by squrrels (we assume). Peas, green beans, and limas ALL gone. A few cherry tomatoes survived. Ugh.
posted by BoringPostcards 17 August | 06:24
I feel you Specklet. My Romas are rotting from the ground up and it's starting to get at the fruit. I was so looking forward to canning and making sauces. I am very sad.
posted by MonkeyButter 17 August | 06:28
NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!

My meager herb garden is thriving.
posted by gomichild 17 August | 06:48
My sister keeps a flower/veggie garden, and has to armor it against rabbits and squirrels. And some of those bugs - I mean, for heavens's sake....
posted by Kronos_to_Earth 17 August | 07:06
Yea, it's pretty bad out here. Not too many 'maters at the farmer's market.
posted by octothorpe 17 August | 07:17
Oh, so sorry to hear that. Tomatoes are basically my reason for existence during the summertime. I don't grow them myself, but some very close family friends always have scads and scads of them, so I get to mooch. I return the favor by providing chives, basil, thyme, oregano and lots and lots of rosemary.
posted by msali 17 August | 08:53
:(

I haven't managed to kill my two herb plants. Yet.
posted by sperose 17 August | 08:58
Oh dear. I'm so so sorry. That is indeed a horrible thing to have happen. Blah.
posted by Stewriffic 17 August | 09:03
I'm sorry to hear about your tomatoes! I bought a strawberry plant in June... it's doing well but I think it doesn't get enough sunlight and it won't grow any strawberries this year :(

At least its leaves are very green!
posted by halonine 17 August | 09:27
We didn't plant anything this year, but it appears the squirrel feast of last year's cherry tomatoes dropped some seeds in the soil - there are currently 3 or 4 tomato plants growing amongst the weeds in our garden. One of them is growing in a sidewalk crack. We'll see if they actually fruit, but it was a pleasant surprise.
posted by misskaz 17 August | 09:45
What sort of blight?

We are getting tomatoes, but the plants themselves look very sickly.

We've been fertilizing some, and watering every day. Plus, every egg we use is getting crushed and put under the tomatoes, for calcium, which is supposed to ward off blossom-end rot.
posted by danf 17 August | 09:46
Here's a local article about the blight, it's the same fungus that caused the Potato Famine.
posted by octothorpe 17 August | 10:10
Yep, that's the kind what we got, octothorpe.

It's just so sad. We special-ordered two heirloom varieties, started them from seed, nutured them along, held our breath when we planted them outside, and watched them grow into luscious plants as tall as me. Then lots of green tomatoes came, and now there's just shriveled browness.

I think we're going to try spraying them (we've been completely organic up to this point, but the organic "solution" is to remove any infected plants, and they're all infected), but I don't have much hope. The plants are half gone.
posted by Specklet 17 August | 10:51
Gah, Specklet! I'm sorry.
posted by brujita 17 August | 10:53
Oh man, how disappointing, Specklet. Is everything else growing ok?
posted by chewatadistance 17 August | 12:25
It's a bummer. New England's tomatoes have pretty much succumbed, too - some people have 'em but they're expensive. The produce markets are bringing them up from NJ, Del, VA... So sorry it's happening across the pond too. One of summer's greatest pleasures, a little less available this year.
posted by Miko 17 August | 14:15
They don't call it "Old Blighty" for nothing.

(I'll show myself out)
posted by kodama 17 August | 17:51
Aw, that sucks. Mine too - they keep putting out new green sprouts and sometimes the sprouts even put out flowers and then the flowers shrivel and give up and die. So sad. The beans are done for - they never got taller than a foot and today I dug the last ones under. The rosemary is alive but very sad and yellow, the thyme is leggy and brown-stemmed, the lavender looks exactly the same as when I bought it.

The mint is crowding out of its pot nicely - time to make mojitos, but I need to buy limes first.

I let the basils have one flowerhead each - the sweet basil has a really tall column of white flowers and the Thai basil has a gorgeous lavender sphere with purple leaves. I should really be cutting them more. Next year it's going to be all herbs - no more tomatoes until I buy a house, probably.
posted by casarkos 17 August | 21:35
I am sorry to hear that, Specklet. It is frustrating to watch them grow, only to see them become sickly. I am having a problem with my pumpkins. They seem to start out fine, tons of flowers, but the ones that begin to form a pumpkin suddenly topple off the stem. I only have two pumpkins out of possibly hundreds of flowers!!

Still have my fingers crossed for my cantelopes!
posted by redvixen 18 August | 14:35
For the Love of Vinyl: The Album Art of Hipgnosis || Bunnycon: Oct. 30-Nov 1st. My house. Come one, come all!

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