Tomato season and its perils

I have been pleased and proud of the tomato crop which I grew this year from seed saved from one heirloom tomato plant I grew from one of Tom's heirloom starts last year. They seem to be doing well despite mystery leaf curl in the potted ones. Those in the ground are looking lush and healthy. But it's started raining now, and I am living in fear of blight.



The farmers at Haliburton Farm no longer grow their tomatoes outside, because their crops were devastated by blight a couple of years ago. This terrific article about blight by farmer-chef Dan Barber explains why blight is on the rise.



Home gardening, the article says, is one cause of the spread, because novice gardeners will go to their usual shopping haunts - the article names major retailers Home Depot, Kmart, Lowe’s and Wal-Mart - in search of plant starts, only these stores are importing plants from thousands of miles away, and some of these carry the infections with them. (Tomato blight is spread through airborne spores from infected plants and soil that get delivered in rainfall; it can affect all the nightshade family which includes your potatoes, eggplants and peppers; and spores can travel up to 20 km on the wind.)



Ways of reducing your plants' vulnerability include starting your plants from seed, or getting them from growers who raise them locally. Stay away from the likes of Wal-Mart which ships them in from parts unknown. Try to water the plants without wetting their leaves, particularly when the weather is damp and leaves won't have a chance to dry quickly. Under no circumstances plant tomatoes or potatoes in the same soil where you've had afflictions. And raise them in a greenhouse if you can.



Taking care is not just for your own satisfaction; buying infected plants can have repercussions to you and to people growing - some of them perhaps very seriously - around you. Barber nails the problem: "As we begin to grow more of our own food, we need to reacquaint ourselves with plant pathology and understand that what we grow, and how we grow it, affects everyone else."