Planning for the year after blight?

[cschick]

So, I've been out looking at my garden beds today.

My tomato plants suffered what may be blight, but right after the end of their main production of fruit--I managed to get almost all the fruit off the worse-affected plants and stall the disease on the less-affected by removing the affected leaves and getting a lot more air/sun space around them.

But my understanding is that I don't want to plant tomatoes or peppers (or potatoes, which I don't generally grow) in that bed _at all_ next season, and maybe even for the season following?

I've been kind of trying to do a three-year rotation of plants in recent years . . .

This year the north 1/2 of my big bed was tomatoes and peppers, next year the south 1/2 of the big bed would have been tomatoes and peppers, and then the following year the tomatoes and peppers would have moved to my small bed (which would have been totally dedicated to them). The small bed is completely separated from the big bed by a patio and the house, so it be safe.

So, last year, the tomatoes and peppers were in my small bed. The small bed this year grew beans, peas and herbs, so I guess that next year I should skip putting the tomatoes and peppers in the south 1/2 of the big bed and return them to the small bed?

Which also raises the question of what to plant in the big bed next year. I don't need the number of beans and peas it could grow . . . any suggestions? Are tomatillos ok to be grown in a bed that has had blight the year following? I haven't grown them in recent years because I've had a problem finding them, but since I'm already starting to plan I can always order seeds to start them. [Edited: nope, they're members of the nightshade family too, so they shouldn't be grown there either next year.]

[janey99]

Hi Cschick!

I had three blight affected beds and I think I am going to do herbs in one of them next year, maybe carrots/beets/radishes in another, and the third, who knows right now.

I might risk it and put cherry tomatoes in that third bed, same as this year, bacause I managed to salvage my cherries, so maybe that bed is not badly compromised.

I'm also going to plant far fewer tomatoes next year, so PLENTY of space remains around them.

It sucks, doesn't it?

Jane

[cschick]

What really sucks is that this was a new bed, specifically set up so that I could do better crop rotation and grow more tomatoes and peppers. In years past, I'd grown much fewer and rotated between the two halves of the small bed, with container gardening for the third year (every third year I did all my peppers and tomatoes in containers to let the bed recover). Unfortunately, last spring was awful busy-wise and I bought started tomatoes/peppers for the first time in years. The blight probably came with them.

Tomatoes, peppers and beans (+ thyme, oregano, basil) have basically been my three crops for years, because those are generally the veggies we eat that I can grow (we also eat lots of onion and garlic, but I've never successfully grown them in our climate). The other things we generally eat are greens and radish, which I grow in the spring and fall (before the tomatoes/peppers go in, after the tomatoes come out) but aren't really full-season plants.

I've also never successfully grown carrots, but I'm looking at them for next year. Maybe broccoli too.

[tankgirl73]

I've got a kind of similar conundrum. It's my potatoes that have blight... they're in a separate, extra-deep, extra-big box, and I can't think what else to put in there next year except for hundreds of carrots. All my boxes are brand new, first year gardening in our new home. This was "my potato box" and was supposed to STAY the potato box.

I'm not sure how "bad" the blight is... I lost a bunch of plants, but the rest seem to be healthy with just the occasional blotchy leaf to pull off... the tubers themselves are fine... and most of the foliage is not actually over the soil (100% compost), the plants "escaped" lol... so there might not be much spore falling into the soil. But, there are probably lots scattered around the box... sigh...

I've never had blight before. It was a rotten, wet summer.

Then there's my tomatoes. No blight, but it appears to be septoria leaf spot. At first just one plant, but it is gradually spreading and starting to affect neighbouring boxes. Again, the tomatoes themselves are fine, but I have to cut back so much foliage that the plants are looking pretty sparse. Can I plant tomatoes in the same place next year, or do I have to rotate out? And what if it does spread to all my boxes (there are some tomatoes in every box) before the end of the season? Where would I put my tomatoes then???