We've Been Blighted!

Well I guess it was inevitable that we would eventually get the dreaded Late Blight. Its presence was confirmed on the farm two weeks ago by Cooperative Extension. Above is an example of what it is doing to the tomato crop... not a pretty sight. The disease initially swept through the whole patch very quickly, effecting some varieties worse than others. Fortunately, at about the time of its arrival, the weather turned from cool and wet to hot and dry. So even though the disease is here, it has not got dramatically worse in the past two weeks. Nonetheless, a significant portion of the crop is a total loss. I was able to pick about 200 pounds today, but for every good tomato I could find, there were probably 10 that were junk.

The other piece of this horror story is the potato crop... it too has been hit by the blight. So while we are able to sort through the rotten potatoes and still find some good ones, this situation will probably get worse and worse each week as we dig them. Also, the good ones that we do find should be used relatively quickly and not stored, as they probably won't stay good for very long. Ah, the life of a farmer!

Many people have probably been following the Late Blight story in the news, but in case you missed it, here's the short version. In an ordinary year we often get late blight, but it doesn't arrive until late in the season and is not much of an issue. The fungal disease is airborne and spreads northward from the south. This year a large greenhouse supplier shipped infected garden transplants to box store outlets all over the northeast. This essentially gave the disease a 2000 mile jump start, showing up in farms in this area in June. The weather was also ideal for its rapid spread - cool and wet - note - just like Ireland during the famous potato famine. Fortunately, the spores of the disease will die with freezing temperature, so it should not carry over from year to year here. Of course there is nothing to prevent infected plants from being imported into the area again.

Our strategy at Minglewood is to struggle on - sort through the rotten fruit and sell what we can. I have sprayed once with copper, a fungicide that is approved for organic production. My hope is to try to save as much of the uninfected fruit as possible. It's nasty stuff and I would rather not have to use it. We'll try it for a couple of weeks and see if it's making any difference.

On a more positive note... with the drier weather the slugs have finally slowed down their feeding. The past two weeks we have had a bumper crop of shiitake mushrooms. I think they prefer the warmer temperatures as well. We have also had a nice productive run on cucumbers- picking well over 500 from a 150 foot row - and they're still coming!