Our Terrible Blight!!

Absolutely gutted today...our tomato crop has been ruined by blight!!

Earlier this year me and my hubby decided that we wanted to try our hand at growing a few veggies. Well I knew this was really going to be my hubby's project as I've got "Agent Orange" fingers and have never been able to grow anything in my life.

So we'd already started on a compost heap/bin last year and I have a strange compulsion to wash and keep yoghurt pots, so we set about using our very own compost and put a few tomato seeds in each pot and kept them on trays on the kitchen unit.

I was amazed at how quickly they grew and pretty soon we realised we needed a more permanent veg plot. So we got to work and quickly cleared an area.

Anyway we planted a few more rows of seeds of peas, beans, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach and rocket and over the next weeks and months our veg rapidly started to grow...

And of course as with most things you learn through trial and error:

• Rocket tastes disgusting!!
• A very "Green-fingered" hubby makes everything grow, so in the future leave enough gaps to prevent overcrowding.
• Nettles soaked in rainwater for about a month in a bucket makes excellent fertiliser but it sure stinks!
• There is immense enjoyment and satisfaction in looking at your plants at least 15 times a day!!
• Purple-sprouting broccoli takes months to grow!
• Cabbage-white butterflies are the worst pest of all, do not be fooled by their delicate beautiful exterior they are little ba***rds laying their eggs all over the leaves of everything, which then in turn gets completely devoured as the nasty hungry little caterpillars eat every leaf in sight!
• Beer traps are excellent for attracting unwanted slugs and snails.

And so that was where we were up to just a few days ago, everything doing really well. The spinach was great and very tasty, the peas and beans were ready for picking, the broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower weren't going to be ready till next spring (much to our dismay) and the tomatoes just needed a couple of weeks and they'd be ready too..and now the worst has happened! Due to the terrible weather over the last week or so in this part of the country this is what we came down to this morning:

Yes you've guessed it the bloody awful dreaded BLIGHT!!!

Every single tomato plant, about 25, have all been ruined by blight!!! So another lesson there for us both, we need a greenhouse in the future!! It's very upsetting when these things happen and there's nothing you can do to prevent it.

We've looked to see if there's a solution and basically it's chop it all down and don't compost it!! As you can see my hubby is gutted at that prospect and just can't bring himself to do it today. So we'll see if they miraculously recover over the next couple of days...but we're not holding our breath :(