They came down in space ships and shot their little laser guns at all our tomato plants, leaving a path of destruction in their wake. Well, I'm not exactly sure if they were aliens, but they sure were destructive. In 24 hours, hundreds of leaves on our tomato plants, tens of unripe tomatoes, and at least one whole plant (probably 5 feet tall) were blighted.
It's known as "tomato blight," and apparently the unusually wet weather has caused it. It is some sort of fungus that gets in the soil and infects your plants. And once it does, it's wildly contagious, and it moves fast. The idea is to clip the infected areas and get rid of them as soon as possible. And then, because the spores already live in the soil, we're not supposed to plant tomatoes in exactly that spot next year either. Our plants had done so well up till then, it killed us to cut them up and throw parts away. What was heading towards being an epic year for tomatoes will still be our best ever, but it was sad. We have already harvested close to 100 sun gold small tomatoes, and a few black krims. The plant that was lost was a prudens variety (I believe our only prudens). We still have lots of green tomatoes on the vines, and hopefully they mature before the blight gets them too.
I'll be honest; I don't fully understand how the blight works. The UFO explanation works as well as any for me. So aliens, be warned. Come into our garden, and I'll be shooting to kill. Go spread your germy disease someplace else!
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