Blight Update

Well, the Cherokee Purple tomatoes are a writeoff, as are all of the Lime Greens which were in close proximity.  (One Lime Green plant is a little further away from the disease zone, and may yet survive.)  The Tigerellas are showing just a touch of blight, as are the Taxi; both groups are not far from the blight zone, but the Bordeaux treatment seems to have arrested the disease progress, helped along by somewhat-less-humid weather -- though it remains very hot.



Down in the main veggie beds, the Brandywines (my most-blighty tomatoes) are still looking very healthy and blight-free, though there are other fungal diseases of minor impact around.  There is so much new growth on them, though, that I shall go for a prophylactic Bordeax treatment again this afternoon, just to be sure the new leaves and flowers get some protection.  After two disastrous years of Brandywine harvest, I am determined to do everything I can to ensure a decent crop this year.  The catch, of course, is that we've already started harvesting a few Red Kaki, Ida Gold and Cherry Tomatoes, whilst the Brandywines have barely begun flowering, so there's still quite a long and difficult time ahead for them.

Pumpkin-Fly Cage Experiment

On the experimental front, my shadecloth caging of the Squashes seems to be working!  Yay!  Uncaged squashes are not worth the bother, resulting in 100% losses to Pumpkin Fly.  But the Squashes under cloth are (so far) mostly free of stings.  The Telegraph Improved cucumbers gave us a few very tasty cukes, but the rest (not caged) are mostly stung.  Still, we rescue the pieces that we can, and the Chooks get the maggots, so nothing goes waste.

I was unable to track down any proper insect-excluding cloth in the country, so tried out a piece of 12% Shade Cloth.  The big questions are: whether the holes in the cloth are small enough to keep the fruit-flies out, and whether the cloth will cut out too much light.  I'm not too much concerned with this last issue, but fruit-flies (alright, Pumpkin Flies, if you prefer) are quite small.  So far the prognosis look good.  Of course it means I will have to hand-pollinate any Squashes I want to save seed from... but that's a small price to pay.