When Blight Wipes Out Your Tomatoes, Eat Beans

Like investors, gardeners should diversify their portfolios. So when the tomato “market” crashes, you will still have something fresh to eat.

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What a summer it has been in the Northeast ! It ’s mid - August , and the lawns are plushy and green . That ’s because it ’s rain down nearly every day , mostly torrential waterspout , and the temperature has seldom topped 90 ° ( or even 85 ° ) . What does this think for the veggie garden ? In my case , early onsetlate blight . My towering tomato vines that just a few weeks ago were ladened with flowers and fruit are starting to succumb , as leaf browning moves up the stem . Fruits turn a ailing brown , with patches of fuzzy white .

Last week , I contend to salvage enough unaffected tomato plant ( Juliets ) to set up a little tomato salad . I savored it , live that there would n’t be many more this year , and for certain not enough to stew and freeze for function during the winter .

This following dayspring , hop to cut my losses and salvage something from my tomato piece , I headed out to the garden with pruner and a big bootleg plastic bag . I rive out 10 diseased plants and clipped off affected fruit from several others . Blighted plants should not be composted , so these will be headed to the dump .

What ’s the deterrent example here?you’re able to control only so much in your garden . Even if you follow serious practices for amending the grunge , set about seed , weeding , lacrimation , and managing pest and disease , achiever is not guaranteed . One of the things you’re able to not control is the weather .

Every year , some crop do better than others , and that ’s a really good reason to diversify your plantings . Instead of growing a lot of one thing , originate modest amounts of several vegetable ( or several variety of the same vegetable ) . step by step you ’ll figure out what usually does well in your garden and what your family likes to eat .

This summer , pelf , Petroselinum crispum , greens , beets , mint , green and yellow President George W. Bush beans , blueberries and blackberries have been antic . Squash and cuke are lagging . Basil is small , but decent . strawberry mark were not so great . And tomato , well , we ’ve already discuss them , and the topic is too painful to revisit . So there wo n’t be much gazpacho this class , but there will be borsht . And yield deep-dish pie . And pesto .

Next yr might be better , might be bad . It will almost certainly be different .

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