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[chooklady]

My tomato plants in the greenhouse are looking a bit sickly, some leaves have died off and there are places on the stalks of the plant that have gone browning and a bit withered, is this blight and if so what can I do if anything?

 

My runner beans which were doing really well are looking pretty pathetic at the moment too. What is going wrong, is it the weather.

 

Regards

Nicola

Edited June 23, 2009 by Guest

[Ain't Nobody Here]

I can't help with the tomatoes, I'm afraid . So far , my 3 plants look OK.

 

I can sympathise though, I've lost 6 spinach plants to bolting, my cucumber seems to have died, and one of my butternut squashes has died with the other 2 not looking particularly happy .

 

It's disheartening, isn't it .

 

(We've had almost gale force winds for a day and a half too - everything's getting blown flat & getting wind damage .)

[chooklady]

It is very frustrating. I've also had some grreenfly in the greenhouse.

I suppose I have had reasonable successes this year to but unfortunately the things that go wrong seem to over power the good things.

[Blackrocksrock]

Mind were looking a bit yellowed and I used some magnesium sulphate in the water and they seem to be doing better now!

[Lesley]

If you use Google Images you will see what it looks like and if you've got it (well, your tomatoes, not you!!)

 

If it is blight then you'll need to deal with it properly - Google 'blight' and have a read......

[chickencam]

have they got dry at any time and have you been feeding them?

 

They need a regular water supply and are quite fussy about being too wet or too dry. Sometimes if they have wilted when they pick up a few leaves will turn and need to be removed. I feed mine from when the first flowers show once a week with liquid tomato food.

[Tara.F]

blight has a quite distinctive 'bullseye' pattern, your tomatoes are unlikely to get it this early in a greenhouse

 

Re your runner beans...if you (like me) have had considerable rainfall over the last few weeks, the ground beneath your runners may have had the nutrients washed out of it.

(the books call this 'leaching')

you could try giving them a good feed or two?

 

also check for blackfly...they seem to be a real pain this year. Along with greenfly there seems to have been a population explosion

[chooklady]

Thanks for all your replies.

 

I didn't think you had to feed tomatoes until the first truss was set? I'm sure I read this somewhere. But I'm open to suggestions, it would be a shame to loose them all now and not a very good start to owning a greenhouse.

 

What should I 'feed' my runners? The tops look OK but they are growing quite slowly compared to previous years. It's mainly the leaves at the bottom that look sickly!

I have grown them in grow bags, I did this last year and they were fine.

[Valkyrie]

 

sorry - help mod! it's too big. Don't know what happened there, please trim for me!

 

'Tis done. Egluntine

 

I was going to ask if the leaves look like this - just means they need a dose of Epsom Salts - it's a shortage of magnesium. SusanK has already said she used this recently. I am going to have to do mine again, once I find the packet! Otherwise I have been using home made comfrey liquid as a feed.

[Blackrocksrock]

Yes mine were just a little yellow only and the one dose of mag sulph helped loads and they look ok now - not started feeding as only flowers and no fruits yet.

[chooklady]

I will go and take some photos now, no time like the present!!

[chooklady]

Here goes, this is what is happening. There are lots of patches like this on the stems and the leaves are shrivelling up.

 

 

[Valkyrie]

It might be a virus caused by sap sucking insects, I think it is around July when blight is around - but then it will attack leaves first - it usually attacks outdoor toms and spuddies. As your plant looks quite healthy below, I would cut below the damaged area just above a leaf joint - it might encourage new side shoots to come from there, or from the base. In case it is blight, you can spray the healthy parts (and the rest of the toms just in case - it is an airborne fungus) with copper fungicide - Bordeaux mixture is "acceptable" if growing organically. You will have to destroy the damaged part of the plants, but I don't think it is blight. It might be something to do with humidity or sometimes watering in the sunlight could cause the plants to "burn". All I can say is pesky plants! And again, if the top half of the plant looks healthy, cut it off and bung in some compost - just add water and it should take - all is not lost - yet, so fingers crossed!

[bluekarin]

Chooklady - I had the same thing with my toms a couple of years ago. I'm afraid to say they eventually all dies off I was growing them in a growbag, something I haven't done before. But I think that year was also a particularly bad year for blight.

[chooklady]

All 6 of my tomato plants are showing signs of this now, it doesn't seem to be affecting anything else in the greenhouse, my one and only melon plant has dies but it was a bit weedy in the first place!

I'm thinking I might just pull them out and forget about tomatoes this year!

[Blackrocksrock]

lppking at it yes they look like they may be better burnt but not put in a compost bin in case its blight!. Best to cut your losses this year and try again next year you could grow lots of lettuce etc and pot plants this year though.

[Lesley]

It does look like blight to me - I'd remove it all and burn it.

[chooklady]

Can other plants catch it and if so which ones? The tops of the plants seem healthy. Will I need to do anything to the greenhouse to stop any kind of contamination? Could my runners be suffering from the same thing?

[sjp]

Can other plants catch it and if so which ones? The tops of the plants seem healthy. Will I need to do anything to the greenhouse to stop any kind of contamination? Could my runners be suffering from the same thing?

 

blight only affects potatoes, tomatoes and in theory peppers all been members of the solanium family so no your beans wont have blight

blight normally only takes 3 days to take the plant out compleatly

one Question have you had the vents open blight needs quite high humidity to 'breed'

[Valkyrie]

It might be verticilium wilt - it says the leaves wilt, but says destroy the affected parts and encourage new growth. Other greenhouse diseases are tomato stem rot, but that "usually" happens at the base of the plant. For leaves and stems rotting, says it could be grey mould or botrytis, but you would see the mould easily.

[chickencam]

It could be botrytis how well ventilated is your greenhouse? Do you close it at night if so is it always opened again very early.

 

I don't close mine once the nightime temperatures are over about 8 degrees and don't get too many problems.

 

I would either remove and bin or burn the affected leaves and see what happens, or remove the plants and start again, you may still just about find leggy plants in some garden centres that can be potted into big pots with a good John Innes compost and nutured so all is not lost.

[Valkyrie]

There's still loads in Homebase too - saw them the other day.

[chooklady]

Thanks everyone, I have removed the offending leaves etc and binned them but there are more leaves fading now, it has been quite gradual so maybe not blight.

I pressume it will not be safe to use the soil from the grow bags to grow new plants.

I will see what I can do at the weekend and try and get some more plants and large flower pots

 

I do keep the greenhouse fairly closed up as it isn't in the sunniest of positions I will open it up more from now.