garden | late blight hits Maine garden

heartbreak once again... Take a good gander at the pretty red fruits above. They may be the only tomatoes I harvest this summer.

My heart sank this morning. Yesterday I heard word that a gardener up in Waldoboro spotted late blight in her garden. As soon as I heard that, my mind immediately went straight to my deck tomatoes. That morning I had spotted a second tomato with a brown, greasy looking patch on it. I thought, no... this couldn't possibly be. Not after last year's loss.

But when I came home this afternoon, my once vivacious, healthy, booming plants had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Blight. Again. My heart sank. After all, I raised these plants from seed, back in the cold of winter. I cared for them, pruned them, feed them, and kept optimistic that this would be a banner summer for tomatoes... especially after the amazing stretch of weather we've been graced with.

The good news is that I have only spotted signs of blight on my deck tomatoes. Which by the way, have been immediately bagged in plastic and are headed to the dump. My true tomato bounty lies on the opposite side of our house. It's there that I have over 60 tomato plants growing. You name it, I'm growing it. Super Sweet Cherry 100s, Sun Gold, Juliet, Roma, Heinz Paste, Green Zebra, Jet Star, Speckled Roman, and several heirloom mixes.

I'm going to keep cautiously optimistic that we nabbed and bagged the infected plants as soon as we could. I'm hoping that the garden tomatoes will be spared, but I will keep a hawk-eye out for the first signs of blight. I remember how last year's plants went from full and gorgeous to infected and withered in a matter of 3-4 days.

As you can see, right now, these tomatoes are looking quite lovely. If these plants do get hit, I may seriously question whether or not to try tomatoes again next year. Though they have always been a garden staple of mine for over a decade, I tend to have little will control over editing my amount of plants, so my tomato crop usually takes up one-third of my gardens. To continue to occupy this much space with something that I cannot harvest from isn't practical. But I know that my gardens would not be complete without tomatoes. Maybe I'll just do a little patch. Small. Tiny, really.

Please help prevent the spread of this horrid disease. If you spot the signs of blight in your gardens, please take the appropriate precautions to dispose of your infected plants. For more information on spotting blight and what to do if you have infected plants, please check out this information from the University of Maine.