How to Grow Blight-Free Tomatoes

Growing blight-free tomatoes requires attention and patience.

Tomatoes commonly suffer from three kinds of blight: septoria leaf spot, early blight and late blight. Blight is a fungal disease that results in the progressive yellowing and death of a plant's leaves and eventually destroys the plant.

Things You'll Need

• Plant container
• Light-reflecting plastic sheet
• Weed-free oat straw
• Gardening knife
• Shovel
• Potting soil mix
• Drip hose
• Empty milk jug
• Stakes
• Twine
• Fungicide

Instructions

1. Find an area of your garden where tomatoes have not grown for the past three or four years. If you plan to use a container to grow tomatoes, make sure the container's soil is new. If any blight occurred in a particular soil area in the past, it can reproduce on your new tomato plants or any nearby garden weeds.

2. Place a sheet of light-reflecting plastic or a 6-inch-thick layer of weed-free oat straw over the area where you wish to plant your tomatoes. These layers will act as a barrier between your tomato plants and the soil to keep any lingering infected plant tissue from coming into contact with your new tomato plants. The layers also help retain soil moisture. If using a container, make sure the container has holes in the bottom that will allow water to drain from the plant.

3. Cut holes into the plastic layer or clear holes in the oat straw, about 4 to 5 feet apart in your tomato garden. Dig holes in these areas in the ground. Spacing your tomato plants in this manner allows the appropriate amount of light to get to your plants. It also allows air to circulate between them so that their leaves do not remain wet for very long after dew or rain falls; wet leaves create an ideal environment for blight to occur.

4. Place healthy tomato starter plants from a gardening center or local greenhouse into the holes in your garden or into a container you fill with potting soil mix. Make sure a full 2/3 of each plant is under the soil so that the plants have strong root systems. Select disease-resistant varieties such as Ferline tomatoes.

   Water the area around the plants to keep the leaves as dry as possible. Use a drip hose or a half-buried, water-filled milk jug that has holes punched in its bottom. The holes will allow water to slowly drip onto the roots. Water the plants about once a week when the weather is cool or two to three times a week at the height of summer. Allow the soil to become dry between each watering.

5. Bury stakes in the soil and tie the plants to them using twine when the plants get a foot high. This further helps the plants' leaves to stay as dry as possible in addition to supporting the plants. Apply a fungicide to the tomato plants following the manufacturer's instructions. The active ingredients mancozeb or chlorothalonil can help prevent blight.

References

• Guardian: Ten Steps to Blight-Free Tomatoes
• Gardening Know How: Watering Tomato Plants