Back in June blight and various fungal diseases ruined the outdoor tomatoes. Not only the tomatoes got destroyed but also my emotions too as I love growing them; so I left them untouched and watched nature taking its toll. And to my surprise with the summer weather the tomato plants got a complete new life and sort of outgrown the diseases. I suspect that it is down to the better weather and to that I mulched under the tomato plants with a tick layer of woodchipping to have a good water retention. This not only helps suppressing the weeds but also keeps the soil moist, even today I checked after all these sunny days and the soil underneath was wet, and as the wood breaks down provides some nutrients too to the plants.
It was essential as I completely neglected the plants, didn’t water and didn’t feed them at all since they got sick, only pinched out some of the new growing tips in order to help the few surviving fruits to develop and ripen. And despite some of the plants having completely black and dry stalks they are still going. They have fresh new growth and some of the fruits actually looking rather well; and I have picked few Black Krim and San Marzano. Sungold and Lucciola seems the most affected by the fungi and they did not recover at all, Golden Sunrise looking very poorly too. The Black Krim is doing a surprisingly good job of recovering and the Black Cherry is not much behind either.
I have decided to leave them in because the blight is on the allotment site, everyone has it on their tomatoes and potatoes and no one burns the plants, some just leaves everything in for months till the winter, so it is not much point burning it as the fungi comes back every year is the weather is wet and cold.
And the 2 poor borlotto bean plants are flowering finally; that is all I could save from the slugs.
