Fighting blight???

[BarnMomma]

OK, so my beautiful 12 variety heirloom tomato garden has gotten that nasty blight. (I'm in NY) I have dozens of green beautiful tomatoes ready to ripen and I DON'T want to lose them.

I've been cutting off leaves as soon as they have a speck of black on them.

I also sprayed them down with a gaslic solution and this AM I went out and coated the stalks, leaves, and tomatoes with raw coconut oil becasue I know it's such a strong anti-fungal. I have no idea if this will work or not.

Any other ideas? Not fond of the idea of conventional fungicides.

[mamadelbosque]

The tomatoes you have will likely ripe whether the plants have blight or not - ours did last year (got one fruting, then all the plants wilted/died, but the tomatoes ripened anyways). We've been spraying our tomatoes weekly with Serenade which is an organic spray that supposedly prevents blight and a half dozen other things (powdery/downey mildew, etc), and so far it seems to be keeping it at bay - all my tomatoes have yellowed leave with black spots on the very bottom, but so far the rest of the plants look wonderful. Good luck!!

[sedalbj]

Early blight is normal for tomatoes, yellowish leaves, some black spots, yellowing temporarily terminates at the main leaf vein. Late blight (what is decimating crops now) is just ugly, the leaves start spreading a grey spot that gets bigger, you can often see the little spores hanging under the leaves. If you have late blight, you have to vigilant.

Make sure the leaves or plants go in black trash bags, tied tight, don't compost them. Leave the bags out in the sun to cook the spores in the bags. Copper seems to be the strongest thing that can be sprayed (on the leaves) by organic growers. If you have a large number of plants, consider trashing plants that are infected in an attempt to save the others.

There is no guarantee you won't have it next year, so move your tomatoes as far away as possible from this year's spot, and cross your fingers.

It can spread to potatoes so watch them, if you see late blight on your potatoes dig them up.