So last year was my first year gardening in our new home. Things went mostly really well, but I got some pretty nasty blight.
I was using square foot gardening methods, but I had all the potatoes together in one large box (4x6', 10" deep). They all got blight. The crop itself was fine, tasty, but lower yield. The plants were just terrible.
The tomatoes were more staggered... I had six 4x4' boxes and there were tomatoes in every box but one. They started out not with blight, but with what I believe was septoria... started in one box, I trimmed infected leaves as quickly as I could, but it just got worse and worse and eventually spread to every box. I still had a great yield -- affected more by the bad weather than by the disease. But by the end of the season, I'm sure I saw some blight spots on the plants as well.
Related question... towards the end of the season, I noticed a shrub, which is near my boxes, that seemed to have the same spots as the tomatoes. But I don't know, maybe it's normal for that kind of shrub. I don't know what it is. But I'm scared now that it's harbouring septoria, and I should just pull the whole thing up. It's huge! And I hate to go digging up more plants... I already had to destroy most of my Asian lilies last fall because of Asian Lily Beetle.
The lilies were such a pleasant surprise (the previous owners left us with a gorgeous perennial garden, but I don't know what's there, so I'm still being surprised with some fantastic thing I didn't realize was there lol)... the beetles, a not-so-pleasant one. I tried to keep up with them, but they bested me in the end.
Anyway, is it likely that this shrub also has septoria, or is it unrelated? It seems suspicious that it's right next to where the worst-affect tomato plants were.
Now it's time for planting this year's garden... and I'm stumped. I know I can't put potatoes or tomatoes in the same plots again. But where else can I put them? We have a good sized yard, but much of it is too shaded. We've pretty much filled up our sunny areas. I've already decided I'll fill the once-blighted-potato box with carrots, giving them the extra depth to grow long. We'll have lots of carrots to munch on, yum! But where do I put a new potato box?
And where do I put the tomatoes? I want to grow a LOT of tomatoes. I had like 20 tomato plants last year. Every single box had septoria and possibly blight. The furthest box was the least affected, I'm thinking I might try some tomatoes in that one, in the opposite corners from where they were last year... but how close is safe? How far out would the soil be infected?
If I dumped out the soil and replaced it with new mix, would that be sufficient, or is it likely to be hibernating elsewhere as well?
I was using square foot gardening methods, but I had all the potatoes together in one large box (4x6', 10" deep). They all got blight. The crop itself was fine, tasty, but lower yield. The plants were just terrible.
The tomatoes were more staggered... I had six 4x4' boxes and there were tomatoes in every box but one. They started out not with blight, but with what I believe was septoria... started in one box, I trimmed infected leaves as quickly as I could, but it just got worse and worse and eventually spread to every box. I still had a great yield -- affected more by the bad weather than by the disease. But by the end of the season, I'm sure I saw some blight spots on the plants as well.
Related question... towards the end of the season, I noticed a shrub, which is near my boxes, that seemed to have the same spots as the tomatoes. But I don't know, maybe it's normal for that kind of shrub. I don't know what it is. But I'm scared now that it's harbouring septoria, and I should just pull the whole thing up. It's huge! And I hate to go digging up more plants... I already had to destroy most of my Asian lilies last fall because of Asian Lily Beetle.
The lilies were such a pleasant surprise (the previous owners left us with a gorgeous perennial garden, but I don't know what's there, so I'm still being surprised with some fantastic thing I didn't realize was there lol)... the beetles, a not-so-pleasant one. I tried to keep up with them, but they bested me in the end.Anyway, is it likely that this shrub also has septoria, or is it unrelated? It seems suspicious that it's right next to where the worst-affect tomato plants were.
Now it's time for planting this year's garden... and I'm stumped. I know I can't put potatoes or tomatoes in the same plots again. But where else can I put them? We have a good sized yard, but much of it is too shaded. We've pretty much filled up our sunny areas. I've already decided I'll fill the once-blighted-potato box with carrots, giving them the extra depth to grow long. We'll have lots of carrots to munch on, yum! But where do I put a new potato box?
And where do I put the tomatoes? I want to grow a LOT of tomatoes. I had like 20 tomato plants last year. Every single box had septoria and possibly blight. The furthest box was the least affected, I'm thinking I might try some tomatoes in that one, in the opposite corners from where they were last year... but how close is safe? How far out would the soil be infected?
If I dumped out the soil and replaced it with new mix, would that be sufficient, or is it likely to be hibernating elsewhere as well?
