Is it worth persevering with toms?

[monkeyboy]

This tom has brown marks on it. Any thoughts as to why?

I've sprayed aspirin about a week ago to help avoid blight. Not sure how frequently to do it.

[veggiechicken]

Looks like blight, sorry
Pick and bin any toms with brown marks; then pick the rest and take them indoors. Wash them well and hope that you can get some to ripen before the others go down with blight.

[monkeyboy]

Looks like blight, sorry

Gutting. It's only one tom that has the brown mark on it. If I picked the whole truss off, brought it indoors (having removed that single tom) would it survive?

Rest of the toms look fine albeit green.

[veggiechicken]

Pick them all now - you can leave them on the truss. Can't say whether they will still go down with blight or ripen. But they won't do anything if you leave them on the plant now that blight is in the air.

[monkeyboy]

Thanks. I had a look at the weekend and today. There were no telltale blight marks on the leaves or stem. Why was this? I thought it affected the leaves first?

[Martin H]

I think I can see telltale brown on the stem of the fruit as well as on the fruit itself. So I'd cut off the entire truss and make sure to dispose of those stems, then wash and ripen the rest of the fruit indoors.

The blight can get in on any cut or bruised part of the plant. I usually see it on the stems first, often where I've removed a leaf to let light and air get to the fruit.

[monkeyboy]

I plant to pick all the fruits off this evening after work and maybe put them in a bag with a banana to help ripen. I've read about how the soil might be contaminated and shouldn't be reused.

I grew the tomato plant in a growbag initially and when the veg bed was made, I then transferred the whole plant plus growbag to the bed and removed the plastic growbag, leaving its contents on top of the veg bed.

Do I need to remove the whole soil in the bed? Or just that part of the bed?

I plan to try and grow toms again next year in the same place.

[monkeyboy]

So I got distracted and looked at the toms today. The whole truss was affect by blight. Even the leaves now started to show blight. Amazing how quickly it develops.

I picked the other three trusses and they were fine. They're now indoors in a brown paper bag.

I need to look at how to do things next year. The toms were fine till now so I guess end of Sept is the limit.

[monkeyboy]

Well it's been almost two weeks of the toms being in a brown paper bag, in a warm room, with a bunch of green bananas. The bananas have ripened lovely. The toms are still green as the day I picked them. I suspect I picked them too prematurely and had they not suffered from blight, would have been hopefully been red by now.

I need to look at what to grow next year. I'm leaning more towards determinate to limit pruning but they need more space for square foot gardening than I can afford to provide.

[Jungle Jane]

Try putting the tomatoes on a windowsill to ripen,so they get some sun,are they looking fresh still or a bit wrinkly or a bit brown where blights got them? Some of mine have taken weeks to go red,I picked them green & one tomato was affected by blight but the rest have finally gone red. Are you sure you want to grow tomatoes in exactly the same spot,after blight? I remember your raised bed plans that look good from the sq ft thread & the tomatoes could go in a different couple of squares,in case there's any plant remains deep down,they can root quite far. It would be bad to get blight again next year & not know if it's from the soil or from new spores in the air,sometimes you don't get blight at all & theres less chance if you rotate crops. I don't grow tomatoes in the same place twice but I remember people on here plant in the same greenhouse soil every year,some people take the soil out & put new soil in,you can do either method or grow them in bare soil out of the raised bed if it's a bush variety,in the sunniest spot you've got?

[Scarlet]

I need to look at what to grow next year. I'm leaning more towards determinate to limit pruning but they need more space for square foot gardening than I can afford to provide.

They often crop over a shorter time so I'd do a selection. Pruning needn't take too long.

[monkeyboy]

So I've left the green toms in a bag over the last few weeks. They're slowly turning red:

[planetologist]

Is it worth persevering with toms?
No, grow things that are adapted to British weather. Keep the tomato seeds until 2050.

[Mark_Riga]

"No, grow things that are adapted to British weather."

Oh no nettle soup again!