If you’ve ever grown tomatoes, at some point you may come across some problems with your tomatoes that will make you scratch your head. The tomato blight is a fungal disease that can completely take over and wipe out all of your plants in a short amount of time. The fungal spores spread like wildfire to the plants by touch, wind and water. High damp humidity and moisture also promotes the growth of the fungal blight. It starts as brown spots with yellowing of leaves and then inevitable wilting and death of the plant. This can cause major disaster in summer time so I have my 6 tips to share with you that I use on my tomato plants every year.3
- Pruning leaves from the bottom
First thing we need to do is give distance between the plant and the soil. When it rains or when you have a sprinkler on, the water splashes from the leaves to the soil and then splash from the soil to the leaves. This in turn spreads the fungal spores everywhere in between the plants and soil. In order to prevent the splashing from the soil to the leaves, we need to prune all the leaves at the base of the tomato plant. This also promotes good air flow and circulation through the plant.
2. Watering from the base
We’ve already learned that water can be a bad thing when it comes to fungal disease. Water droplets spread and carry the spores to the leaves especially from the top of the plant. I’ve learned the hard way that watering your tomato plants from the base of the plant can significantly reduce the spreading of the disease. I have many tomato plants, so it would be time consuming to water that many manually. This is where irrigation may come in handy as it directly waters your plants at the base of the plant.
3. Blight leaf pruning
Similar to regular pruning, we are going to be taking off all the infected leaves. You’re going to see brown spots, yellow spots and even crispy brown leaves. Leaving all of these infected leaves on your plant can further spread the disease so removing any signs of the fungal blight is super necessary. Make sure to avoid touching non infected leaves or plants as you could be spreading it as well and wash your hands well to prevent bringing it to other parts of your garden. 4
4. Neutralizing sprays
There are a few sprays that you can use on your tomato plants that can be found to help against the blight. Fungi typically like a more acidic environment so these sprays help raise the PH on the plant leaves. I use two different products. The first is a copper Fungicide that can be found in any garden center or home improvement store. Follow the directions on the bottle for proper mixing instructions. I noticed that it did help some with my leaves but this also had a tendency to burn some of the leaves if sprayed on a sunny day. Also sometimes also the spray mix could be too strong so try diluting it a bit and see if that helps. Another one to use is a baking soda and water mix. I use a regular water bottle and put at least 3 tablespoons of baking soda in water and spray your plants. This is not as strong as the fungicide but it doesn’t burn your plants so choose which option is right for you.
5. Covering soil
This by far was the missing piece in my tomato blight management puzzle . This just completes the blight control when using this with all other methods mentioned. Covering the soil underneath the plant helps prevent any spores from reaching the leaves and spreading it around further. Using all of these methods PLUS crop rotation can help significantly reduce the amount of blight in your garden every year.
Bonus Tip! Propagation
Propagating tomatoes is your last hail Mary play against the blight. Tomatoes are incredibly easy to propagate. They start to grow nods on their stems that grow into roots. Just snip a section of plant about 6in to 1ft in length. Choose a plant stem free of all signs of blight. Make sure the stem has leaves on it because that’s where the nodes are. Place cutting directly in water for minimum a week and change the water frequently. You can also place the cutting directly in soil but I’d suggest using hormone powder to help aide in root development.
All these tips work but still don’t feel discouraged if you get the blight. Mother nature can be rough but there’s always something to learn and improve on. When in doubt if don’t succeed, try try again. Gardening is a great way to learn life skills like perseverance, patience and not giving up. You got this!
