Tomato blight and seed saving
It's
never a good idea to hide things from
your spouse, but I'd been keeping something from Mark. When he
tossed a
half-rotten tomato to the chickens, the truth came spewing out.
"You can't give tomatoes
like that to the chickens," I admonished him.
"There was barely
anything left," my sweet husband
explained. "Just a bite for each
of us."
"No,
you don't understand," I said. "I'll cut off bad
spots. Any tomato is precious. You see, the blight has
struck."
I knew that our tomatoes
had a high likelihood of contracting the
blight this year even though I planted them on the far opposite side of
the garden from last year's tomato patch and pruned them
heavily to
promote air movement. Once the blight is in the air, you tend to
see symptoms the next year no matter what you do. The trick is to
be proactive and stay ahead of the disease.
I
could have dusted my tomatoes with copper and prevented
the blight, but this "organic" treatment seems too harsh for my
garden. Instead, I plan to yank out the worst plants and cut off
diseased leaves as soon as we have a day dry enough to make it safe to
work in the tomato patch. Meanwhile, I picked a bowlful of ripe
fruits to save
tomato seeds for next year.
What do you do with a
bowlful of gutless tomatoes? Make pizza
sauce of
course! That pizza I've been craving for the last few
months really hit the spot.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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You've just given me an idea what to make for dinner tomorrow!
I do love self made pizza.