It appears that all of the tomato plants in every garden has developed Late Blight Disease. This disease is basically a fungus that destroys the plant and spreads very quickly. Late Blight is brought on by the cool damp weather, and spreads by wind, water and transfer of dirt. Unfortunately once you see the symptoms of blight it is too late, as the disease will spread and take over the whole plant. We picked all the tomatoes that had not been affected yet and be distributed them. There were lots of green tomatoes that we had to take, as the disease would have killed them off within the next few days if we didn't.
FYI:
Options for ripening green tomatoes indoors include:
- Placing them on a sunny window sill. This is a hit or miss solution. You’ll have much better luck ripening mature green tomatoes. Although the tomatoes are more stable sitting on their stem side, they will rot less readily if you can place them blossom side down.
- Wrapping individual green tomatoes in newspaper and layering in a box, no more than 2 layers deep. Place the box in a dark, dry spot and check weekly for progress. It usually takes 3-4 weeks for the green tomatoes to ripen, but check frequently and remove any fruits that show signs of rotting.
- Placing the green tomatoes in a paper bag with a ripe apple. The apple gives off ethylene gas, which speeds up ripening. Check the bag daily.
The research we have done and the info we have received is that if you compost the diseased plants/fruit, the blight could stay in the compost as well as the soil it was planted in. The blight may not get killed off in the winter and the soil could still be contaminated.
http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/lateblighthg.htm
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