Blight, lets try to avoid it.

well, all this comes froma conversation this morning with a customer, who has a new garden to play in, and is going to try tomatoes again. The poor fellow had suffered very badly from Tomato Blight at his last place, and asked for any tips to help rduce the risk. Sadly Blight can be carried on the breeze, which makes allotments such a dangeous place for toms and potatoes.
But we did come up with a few ideas on how we could reduce the chances of an outbreak, so here they are.
I ought to point out that these are theorectical ideas, that were bourne out of a conversation on a bitterly cold winters day.

1 as Blight can live in the soil, sterilise the soil where you will be growing tmos, this can be done with Jeyes Fluid, or other agents, have a look in your garden centre and see which ones you feel happy with. I tend to go for Jeyes, as I like to use what is freely availiable to our custmoers.
2 Blight, living in the soil can 'splash back' up onto the stem and leaves of your plants, so to prevent this, watering needs to be done with care, one tip is not water directly around the plant, but to cut the top away from an empty soft drink bottle and invert this by the pant stem, support with a cne and some gaffer tape, then water/feed into the up turned bottle.
3 Taking step 2 a stage further, as a heavy rain storm may cause spashback, esp after a spell of hot dry weather, I suggest that you grow toms through a porouis membrane, these are sold under a variety of different names, such as Terram, or Phormisol. They are made out of woven nylon strips. Do not use the material sold a weed proof mebrane for paths, this does not transmit water very well.
4 Wood chip, and if poss use Oak chip, this idea behind this is that Oak conatins a hight level of tannins, and Oak bark can be effective against some for of fungi, hence the slow rate at which fungi rots Oak down. So by my system of logic, Oak chippings should upset any blight spores in the soil.

Well I hope these thoughts are worth sharing.

Finally, it seems as if the Americans are not too keen on us, they seem to be a little bit peeved at the ability of UK growers to top the 'Magic Million' SHU's, with varieties which score about 6-800,000 SHU's over there. Sadly they cannot compre hand that with glashouses we have temps which mathc theirs, and with our longer summertime days, were beating them hands down.

Happy christmas everyone.