Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Devastated

My tomatoes are all gone!!! I last was out in the garden on Sunday afternoon to pick tomatoes. (I know, bad Judy for not going out to the garden for almost 3 days) It looked like the mold that had begun after the 6+ inches of rain had stopped. But then I went out tonight to pick- and there was something different. Probably 95% of my tomatoes have been affected by the late blight- they look awful! I'm going to have to pull them all out and hope it hasn't spread to my potatoes already. Fortunately, the potatoes are up slope for run off and up wind from the prevailing winds. But I see some potato digging in the very near future, even though the vines haven't died yet.
So, there will be no more tomatoes from my house. I guess I'm fortunate that I've gotten as many as I have. With picking them as they just start to ripen (to save them from mousey predation) I've got enough ripening in the house for maybe another 8-10 quarts of sauce. Or maybe I need to do some pints of diced tomatoes since I use those in several recipes. sigh. And just when they were starting to ripen fast enough that the mice weren't able to get to all of them. And my paste tomatoes were just starting to really ripen.
I've never had this problem before out here. I guess, from my research on-line, that it thrives in the type of weather we've been having- very wet and with moderate temps (60-80). We had over 14 inches of rain in August with temps generally in the mid 70s. Definitely NOT typical Iowa August weather!
Again, I'm counting my blessings that I got what I did before this hit, unlike many in the Northeast. But it is a great disappointment.

9 comments:

  1. Well Phooey Judy. I was thinkin' you'd be sending me a few jars of tomatoes sauce since you had so many tomatoes ~ but I guess not now that you've got..."THE DREADED MATER ROT". Terrible thing that moldy mater rot. Better stay away from yer taters. Can taters get mater rot? Heavenly day, what a terrible predictament!! We haven't had any rain in a week, which is a real record. Temps have been in the 70's but starting tomorrow and the next 5 days are going to be mid 80's. Gets cool at night - I love that! Better go to bed - have a good day tomorrow!...debbie

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  2. I am so sorry Judy! Gardening can take us through such highs, and then such lows can't it? :(

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  3. So sorry about the toms Judy. This has sure been the year, hasn't it?

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  4. Oh no. That's horrible, I was hoping you'd escape the blight. I'm glad you were able to get so many tomatoes so far, but I know that doesn't make up for seeing all the vines like that. The weather can be, well, more than frustrating. I hope your potatoes are ok.

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  5. Oh Judy! Sorry for your loss. This is when we can be happy that we have grocery stores and will not be facing starvation over the winter right? The silver lining?
    I am still waiting for my tomatoes to RIPEN-and we have had one frost already. Got to love northern WI!
    K

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  6. This has been such a hard year in the garden, especially the long periods of rain that kick up the blight spores!

    I think I will take the advice of some other bloggers next year, and bring my tomatoes in when they just start to ripen. I had too many split from the excessive rain by leaving them out to ripen on the vine.

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  7. So sorry about your tomatoes... We can sure understand your frustration. We had early blight in the spring due to weather issues and the plants look pretty rough this late in the season but are still producing. We have six hanging buckets of upside-down growing plants in our old dog kennel. I went out last night to harvest what I thought would be a lot - but birds had gotten into them and pecked the heck out of a bunch of them. We have never had that happen before. Fortunately, our roma plants are on another side of the house and are safe - probably not as sweet and tasty. We also planted several plants up close to the house - but those are the ones that the rogue buck has been picking... Like Hickchick said, I am glad we have grocery stores - otherwise we would starve here!!

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  8. The same happen to our tomatoes. I too was devestated!

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  9. Oh no, you too? I don't know what's happened to the vines here in Virginia, but we're calling all our local farmer friends trying to get quart baskets full for tastings at our Festival next weekend! We thought we'd have baskets-full by now, but turns out we were a little too late. They are all dying. Enjoy tomato salad while you've got it! Fresh mozzarella, anyone?

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