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Hello! We've had a bit of a disaster with tomatoes the last couple of weeks and as well as not being sure what it is, we don't know how to combat it. The most likely suggestion we have had is blight  although we've also been told it's a bit early to expect blight. It also doesn't completely sound like the descriptions I can find of blight, but sounds somewhat like it  . As far as I'm aware, there has never been a problem with blight in this garden, but with the warm and humid weather recently it's easy to imagine that fungus type diseases will be more likely. The affected plants have grey or beige patches on leaves which then curl up and die; the leaves look distinctly mouldy underneath. Only one of the plants affected has fruit on it, which mosty seems unaffected but a couple of the smaller fruit have just rotted away. The main obvious damage is on the stems which have grey or black rotten patches on them. The problem started with a plant which had a broken main stem which, foolishly in retrospect, we tried to save by taping it up.
We've moved all the affected plants right up the garden (it's a long garden so quite a distance and behind the garage) as some of them were showing signs of new growth. We've been spraying some of them with a strong solution of garlic which I read was anti-fungal, though with the wet weather obviously there has been no point the last few days. We also, it has to be said, haven't fed them as regularly as we should have due to ill health and having bought too many plants!
I'll try and get a picture of the affected leaves, but if anyone can give any help in the meantime I'd be very grateful. 1) is it likely to be blight? 2) what else might it be? 3) have we any chance of saving the affected plants? (& what should we do with them if not? burn? council compost bins - which get heat treated)
4) what can we do to stop it spreading to as yet unaffected plants? (beyond moving them to a different garden!) 5) if we get rid of the affected plants would we be foolish to replace them? (we have a friend with plants to spare)
6) is it likely to spread to pepper, aubergine or potato plants in the garden?
I have been looking forward to the tomato season more than I can say so we are keen to rescue some tomatoes even if it's only the ones on the unaffected plants!
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