Picture this: it is summer 2024, you live in Maine. There has been an ungodly heat wave (high 80s-90s) for weeks straight, and there is no end in sight. SUPER HUMID. The last thing you want to do it weed your garden. Unfortunately, you find early-stage blight on your tomatoes and you must brave the heat and take care of the garden.

In all reality, it is hot. BUT the biggest issue is all of the deer flies in our backyard. Not cute. The blight I found while weeding, also not cute.

What is blight

Blight is a disease that can affect tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes. It makes the leaves, stem, or fruits get brown/yellow spots, wither up, can kill your plant if you don’t catch it early enough.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos of the blight infecting my cherry tomatoes, because I was in a weeding-frenzy to eradicate it. However, I do have a stock image of a tomato plant with blight, below. But if you google “early tomato blight” you will get a pretty good idea of what was happening to my poor tomatoes.

Last year, I had late-stage tomato blight; however, it only affected my last harvest, and most of my tomatoes ended up being edible still. Most likely, the blight was still in the soil from last year.

My solution

This years solution: Trim, spray, and vigilance!

I went through and cut off all of the bottom leaves/arms that had any blight on it for all of my tomato plants. I was very liberal in my cutting too, I seriously trimmed my plants.

After, I sprayed the remaining leaves with Neem oil. Why neem oil? We try not to put too many chemicals on my plants. The labels of organic vs non-organic are essentially nonsense to me, but as a general rule-of-thumb, I try to limit what kind of chemicals I put on plants. Neem oil is our pesticide and our fungicide of choice and has worked great so far.

I also just ordered some copper fungicide to spray on my tomatoes too. I have never used it, but a lot of online sources recommend it for blight. Neem oil also works, but it isn’t a lot of people’s top choice and I refuse to let my tomatoes die young if I can help it.

Now, I wait. During my morning garden walks, I check my plants and remove any blight I find. I have been lucky so far.

Solution for next year: I will most likely put some kind of mulch under my tomato plants, when I plant them outside. I have read that having some barrier, from the soil and the tomato stems/leaves is a good way to avoid existing blight in the soil. That way, even hard rain won’t splash the leaves with soil.

If you like the tomato trellis’s I have, check out my post on how I made them!

Comment and let me know what you have done in the past to combat diseases in your garden! Last year we had SO MUCH rain, and his year we have SO MUCH humidity and heat. Our planet is screwed, but I guess I will just keep gardening.

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