It’s only 11am as I type this and this morning has already been a roller coaster of highs and lows.
Disaster
Coming outside at about 9ish, looking to see if any of my tomatoes had ripened. I was met with this.
Disaster… All 5 plants look like one of the Scourge from Warcraft had walked through the place blighting the land as he goes. I swear I didn’t see any of this when I checked on them on Friday morning.
I’m going to admit that I don’t think it’s only taken a couple of days… What’s more likely is that I completely missed the warning signs when I last looked at them.
The whole lot also smelled bad, but only after I had started to move them. With little choice all 5 plants had to be lifted, picked through and put in the municipal green waste bin. I’m not putting them in my own compost bin just in case it is blight. I don’t think my cold compost bin would kill it off. While the municipal ones gets RAGING hot and will likely manage to burn it off.
So after sifting through it for any untarnished fruit. All I got was the lot on the left and after getting rid of any that insects had got to I was left with the bowl on the right. I’m not upset about losing fruit to insects. It’s a pain to be sure but it’s natural and everything has got to eat. But the blight, that’s what Google seems to think it is, is something I could have avoided.
So I am left with 5 and a half pounds of green tomatoes and no idea what to do with them. *sigh* At least my humorous one managed to survive! B-)
Elation
^^^ Click… The Irony was not lost on me. B-)
After moving the tomato plants I found a few more spring onions. Look at the size of those!
I then decided to have a look at the squash to see if they had issues. I didn’t want to get caught out on the back foot again!
OMG!!! Not only that one but this, these two, these two as well and this one! Wheee!!!
Now, before I get ahead of myself it is early days. I have some straw to put under them later. But I felt so much better after seeing them! B-)
And then there was this.
My Clematis finally decided to flower. It’s been a few years since it last flowered. The last 2 years it’s had issues with some kind of infection that caused all the leaves to drop and reduced it to the ground. The year before that the trellis on the wall had come loose, fallen and broke a couple of stems.
This year had seen lots of vertical growth but no flower buds all summer. Then buds grew for this one and the one you can see just behind it and a couple of others not long after, but I was scared they would fail to open or not form properly… I’m really glad they did.
With luck next year the plant will have a good head start and manage more than a possible 5 flowers!
Phew… What a morning! I need a sit down! B-)
Kal's Gardening 
I think it’s botrytis (grey mould) rather than blight but nevertheless it’s definitely not what you want in your own compost heap. Sorry you’ve been so afflicted – I had this three years ago and was most disappointed.
Thank goodness your clematis is doing so well. Onwards and upwards….
I’ve cleared it all out (And raked up any stray bits) so with luck it won’t spread to anything.
This is ironic as the Clematis had a fungal issue, now the tomatoes do. *rolls eyes* B-)
I don’t think it attacks just anything, so with luck the rest of your garden should be okay. Fingers crossed!
Yeah. I’m really excited about the squash… I was more than a little worried that it would spread to them.
The warm weather over the next few days should help protect your squash 😊
I did read that the fungus likes wetter weather. I’ll just have to water the squash a fair bit now, if its going to be warmer.
Tuesday is expected to be the warmest for 55 years!
Oh that’s going to make the nights sweltering. Its bad enough as it is! B-(
I know 😕
Still, I’m on annual leave for the next couple of weeks so am pleased to have decent weather for it. Especially as I’m decorating.
Working when not working, eh? Not even some time for feet up in the garden?! B-)
I won’t decorating all day every day 😉
I don’t decorate at all… Ever. This is why we have decorators. >.>
Yeah… I’m rubbish at decorating. I tend to get it everywhere but where it should be.
It’s a skill I have.
Help#1: take your green tomatoes, wrap then individually in newspaper n store them in a box/open container in the kitchen. Then check them at leat once a week…this extends the season for u. When u open them to see if they r red, make sure to wrap back up if still green for next check.
Help#2: get some freezer bags. Blanch n freeze most-you can thaw them later to cook as is or turn into sauce (fyi-our fave comfort food is noodles n tomatoes-dash of salt pepper onion n butter-YUM!!)
Noodles and tomatoes?
Do you fry them while green and just add them to noodles or something? We eat a fair bit of noodles and this sounds intriguing!
We use red tomatoes – blanch to remove the skins, cut out the core, then chop up the rest into a bowl (seed juice and all). Boil up your fav noodles and drain. Now, the way mom did it (and she rarely cooked – that was dads passion) she/we just throw the tomatoes into the noodles, add some butter, salt and pepper and she was done – HOWEVER – my sister and I will now pre-fry some diced onions, sliced (or chunked) zucchini, and mushrooms – save the juices off of this too (especially if you fried them in butter – NO, I am not a health nut, we try to eat the good stuff – but it HAS TO HAVE FLAVOR…so we choose butter – yum!)…then throw it all into the noodles with the tomatoes. We just did another version adding some ground beef(fried up also) – but now we are leaning more into the “hot dish” area instead of just noodles. Noodles are the base of it all – YUMMY! Let me know if you try it and how you like it please! This dish is our go-to when we don’t know what we want to eat – works kinda like chocolate for us – LMAO!!
Hmmm… I know what you mean about butter. If you want taste you have to go for the good stuff. And anyway, a balanced diet is just that… BALANCED. You NEED fats and oils, you just need to keep a lid on them.
Do you need to remove the skins? When I do a bolognese I leave the skins on. I don’t think you lose anything from having them and as with many veg, a portion of the nutrients are in the skin.
If I do this then any meat will be bacon. Bacon and tomatoes goes really well. But I don’t see why it can’t be a meat free meal.
Maybe some left over butternut squash?
bacon – yummm – ooo – a BLT sounds great right now – lol – any meat, any veg, skin on, skin off – totally your preference! go for it guy!!! FYI too funny, we threw butternut squash in the last batch we made – ha hahaha
There is never a bad time for bacon… It’s always Bacon-o’clock! B-)
Thanx for my 1st hard laugh of the day Kal! I have heard of beer-thirty over here, but never bacon-o’clock – -hahahaha, gonna have to use that one – love my some bacon!
We have Beer-o’clock too…
And then there is the song for all drinkers.
Help#3: once your plot is clear-cover it with plastic to clean the area- let the sun cook it for several days
I don’t have any clear plastic to do that with… If only I had kept some of my old plastic from when the greenhouse died. B-(
Find a local warehouse-they’ll have plenty to spare!
I’m trying to remember where I got my lot for the greenhouse. I think they were clear thick dustsheets?
Could be? I know a lot of our stock comes with a really nice clear sheet over the top, not icky pallet wrap. It would be perfect for one season. We toss it in the baler with the wrap for recycling.
We used to get that when I briefly worked for ASDA. It’s that stuff I used for my greenhouse.
I just wish it was UV corrected. B-)
When we clear a really bad plot (tons of ugly weeds like goat-head) then we use black plastic trash bags. Blocks the sun as well as cooking the ground underneath. then we just scrape away all the ugly dead stuff. Now we are into “weedless” gardening in which process you actually leave all the nasties there – its wild but it is working. Just had to figure out that we needed cardboard vs several layers of newspapers (heavier for our worst areas). So far – so good.
I may well buy a roll of cheap bin bags and open them up and pin them to the wooden frame.
It may well work… Maybe not as well as others but there you go. B-)
It will also be a boatload better than the newspaper that is down now… Although I may leave that down too.
The hard wind took mine, but also looked like your maters. Oh well. I know better than to try, here.
Apparently blight can stay in the soil… This is why you need to rotate crops.
Yeah I didn’t put tomatoes or any of that family in the bed last year at all. Dammit. I DO need a greenhouse!
I don’t think I will put tomatoes there next time. If I do them at all they will be elsewhere and better supported.