As many New Englanders already know, this has been a terrible year for tomatoes; endless rain, overcast days, cool nights, and a horrible strain of late blight that came early. So far, knock on wood, my tomatoes seem OK. I started some from seed (determinate/bush variety) and bought some seedlings (indeterminate/vining). Both kinds seem blight free.
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I'm a little more worried about the cucumbers, which do seem to have developed a mildew. I got several beautiful cukes early this year, but the newer flowers and fruits seem to be blackening.
Today was pretty sunny, so things seem better, but I'm still not convinced about this whole veggie thing. It's just too stressful! But the tomatoes are pretty much better than anything the grocery has to offer...and Basil is about the easiest thing to grow and tastes good in everything (now that I've figured out that they need to be harvested constantly for best growth), and I'm not a big cucumber eater, but they were really crispy.
So I'm thinking next year, I'm going to look for cucumber and tomato varieties that are resistant to the more common fungi. I suppose this means I'm going to keep "farming.'
-Steph
P.S. Garden Rant already did a piece on late blight, so here's their much more informed take on the topic.
List of Links
Cornell U, Agric Dept: Late Blight on tomato
Salem News: Late blight hits farm tomatoes
Garden Rant: Some thoughts on late blight
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