blight?

[dandelionsrflowers]

i am so disheartened... but i thought that maybe the garden goddesses could help.

is this blight? here is a link to a couple pictures...
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

here is one of the cuke leaves...
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

what can i do? the tomato plant is LOADED with green tomatoes and i am very scared of losing them all. any advice would be VERY appreciated :

[velochic]

This looks similar to what happened to mine earlier in the year (before I had a lot of fruit bloomed). The plants never got above knee-height and I didn't have a great harvest. I do believe this is the blight that is spreading across the US. My friend/neighbor did not have this problem until really late, so we were able to share a lot.

As for green tomatoes... have you ever made Chow-chow relish? It's more popular in the south. That's what I used my green tomatoes to make. You can google a recipe. It's a high acid food, so it can be waterbath canned. I make mine really spicy hot and dh loves it.

[annekevdbroek]

Thats kinda what my plants looked like - though you still have a lot of green leaves in that photo. Basically, my plants looked more and more unhealthy from the ground up. Lower leaves turned yellow then brown and then the plants started dropping leaves. The ends of the branches still looked pretty healthy for a while. My blight hit mid-way through fruit production, so I still got a pretty good amount of tomatoes this year.

[dandelionsrflowers]

thank you!

i guess i feel a lot better knowing that i will still probably get ripe tomaotes :

the plants look more sad every day, lol.

[Aeress]

I have ripened some of my tomatoes in the house. You may have some luck ripening them in a window, Maybe in a paper bag?

[cschick]

Originally Posted by dandelionsrflowers

thank you!

i guess i feel a lot better knowing that i will still probably get ripe tomaotes :

the plants look more sad every day, lol.

Pull any that are "blushing" or even starting to get a whitish sheen to them and put them into a paper bag with an already-ripe tomato. The blushing ones should fully ripen in about 3-4 days, the white-sheened ones in about 7-10 days.

I generally pick/bag all my tomatoes at one of those two points, and rarely "lose" any that never ripen. (For me, it's about hiding them from the raccoons, who will come and steal the tomatoes the day they ripen if I let them ripen on the plant.)

But also--is that a determinate plant? My determinate plants always start to look like that just before all the tomatoes burst into ripeness. I figure they're telling me they're done.

[serenetabbie]

You have late blight and powdery mildew. There is nothing to be done at this point, but some dry, sunny days can stall it. I would not can or feeze the tomatoes... the USDA is warning against it because the fungus could change the pH. Burn or throw away your tomato plants, do not compost them. Powdery mildew is super common at the end of the season and will not survive a freezing winter. Those are ok to compost.