Tomato Blight

Ah the tomato seedlings looked so healthy to begin with.  Such vigorous growth which I hoped would progress to produce a juicy crop of shining red tomatoes.  The plants flowered.  I tried helping the fertilisation along a bit with a pastry brush.

All was well until….

 

Tomato Blight

Aggghhhh. Tomato blight.

A quick bit of research suggested that I should throw the whole lot away, burn the plant material and give up.  Meanwhile the plants I’d given to son Matt and his wife Frankie were producing good red tomatoes in Cardiff. So I guess it is around here that the tomato blight spores lurk.

I tried picking the green tomatoes early, in the hope that they’d ripen inside but that didn’t work either.

 

Fruits showing blight

I cleared most of the plants out..all save a handful that I couldn’t bear to.  the tom thumb pot ones didn’t appear so badly affected.

Gradually, over the next few weeks, miraculously, they began to recover and I am beginning to reap some red tomatoes at last.

At Llandogo Village Stores Roger Brown has a lean -to greenhouse with many healthy looking blight free tomato plants bearing clusters of cherry red tomatoes, growing in Grow Bags

Is that the answer?  I asked him and very helpfully he explained that tomato blight is quite prevalent in this area.  he grows a blight resistant variety called Mountain Magic from Thompson and Morgan seeds with success, verifying that they tasted good too.  Maybe I should try those next year.

Another friend commented that she treats her plants with Bordeaux mixture though I am not sure how organic this is.

 

 

Composting

There are several compost heaps in the Jungle.  One contains mostly chicken manure from when I clear the shed out.  Another has weeds which look compostable piling up, ever higher near the old goose shed.  Grass clippings get thrown on both of those too.  Then there’s the shrub/branch pile which gets burnt occasionally.

Finally there’s the good old Forest of Dean District Council compost bin.  We’ve had it years.  Into this I pour the house vegetable waste that the hens won’t eat, about a bucket full a week. Sometimes, if I remember, I top it up with some chicken manure when I clean the hens out.

Son and partner in London have a wormery which produces miraculous silky smooth compost.  All odourless of course.  I wondered about this..maybe that’s what I need.

BUT.  Just been to empty the bin again and found all these creatures, crawling all over the bin, clearly enjoying their warm humid environment, dripping off the top.

 

Brandling worms naturally growing in the compost bin

Worms, lovely worms.

When I opened the top there was a large nest of them squirming about but by the time I’d got the camera, they had started to move away

 

A nest of brandling worms enjoying the decaying vegetable matter

What is strange is that for all the vegetable waste that gets poured from the top, very little in comparison appears to come out from the bottom!

 

 

Radish Surprise

I’ve been unsuccessful with growing radishes -one of  the most simple of all vegetables to grow – they either fail to germinate (slugs I suspect) or germinate, grown then bolt, rarely producing any root swelling.

I have tried in the greenhouse too.  I did get a few radishes from there but only a handful.

Later on in the summer I tried growing them in the raised bed.  Again they germinated and grew but failed to show off any actual radishes to eat!

Feeling despondent I was clearing out this bed a couple of days ago when I found this. It was a whopper.  I imagined the radish bulb itself would be hard, woody and inedible but this wasn’t the case. It is hot, very grateable and wonderful in salads and coleslaw.  I bet I can’t reproduce that growth next year!