Now, living in Western North Carolina, it seems that it’s not a matter of if, but when we will see late blight. In all my years gardening in East Tennessee, I never saw late blight. Serenade is a biological fungicide that can help prevent late blight- along with organic copper fungicide. Use organic sprays BEFORE you see signs of blight. This will reduce the risk of plant matter accidentally being left from previous years- which may have spores still living on them. Practice good crop rotation so that your tomatoes and potatoes are not planted in the same soil year after year. Wet conditions can breed a lot of disease- so keep the water on the ground and not on the leaves. It also includes a chart of recommend space for common vegetables. Here’s my guide on correct garden spacing. Proper spacing will allow your tomatoes to dry faster and allow more air circulation. I think one of the reasons my plants were so hard it was that I planted them too close together in order to fit them all in, that put together with a wet and cool June, gave me the perfect recipe for blight. There are a few heirloom tomatoes that seem to have some natural resistance as well as some hybrids that can fight late blight. That’s the way it is with most things, right? It is better to prevent late blight than to try and treat and save an infected area. How to Prevent Late Blight in Your Garden After all, goal with out a plan is just a dream! Make your homestead dreams come true! The Homestead Goal Planner will help you prioritize your life and your homestead goals and keep you on track with good planning practices. Fruits are usually the last to show signs- green fruits will become brown in areas and turn completely brown/black as it progresses.Stems will also start to blacked in random spots- usually at a joint.One of the easily identifiable signs is the white, fuzzy, fungal growth on the underside of these leaves. You will see blackened areas over the leaves. The leaves are the first infected- usually lower on the plants.It provides optimum conditions for blight to spread. Cooler, wetter weather will spread the disease quickly.The good news is that late blight won’t live in your soil or on your tomato cages…but make sure you get all roots, stems, leaves, and potatoes out of the ground. Plants should be destroyed to that no infected plant matter remains in your garden, on your soil, or in your compost heap. It affects both tomatoes and potates (Irish potato famine!). It spreads easily on the wind through spores and can travel quite a ways to settle on your plants. Technically speaking, Late blight is a fungus, Phytophthora infestans, to be exact. This means one plant will most likely turn to 2, which turns to 3, and so on and so on. Late Blight, however, will take down the entire plant- and it is highly contagious and spreads easy. Most will cause a reduction of harvest, but not affect the entire crop. Late blight is not like other diseases that strike your garden. ![]() I wouldn’t wish that on any gardener! So what can you do to prevent late blight from destroying your garden? First let’s talk about what it is and how to spot it. ![]() We were lucky to get a few early tomatoes first, but all hopes of canned sauce were gone. We started spraying the remaining tomatoes with an organic copper fungicide. We dug up all the plants we could find with signs. I knew what it was, but I snapped some pictures and sent them to my husband and sat down to Google. I walked the garden and found more plants along the row- with blackened stems and even some of the fruits had a bruised look about it. It started as black spots on the leaves and fuzzy white growth on the underside. They were growing, heavy with green fruits and so close to turning red. I spent even more hours pinching off suckers and winding twine around the plants to tie them to their stakes. Please see my disclosure page for more information about cookies collected and our privacy policy. If you make a purchase using one of these links, I may earn a commission.
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