late blight

**"* F* <c*@mail.com>**

Lorraine  wrote:  Simple application of bacillus subtilis which of course needs 
reapplication after rain can protect desired vegetation in  home gardens
from getting this dreaded disease."

Oh if it were only so... Here in Massachusetts we have been hit hard with late blight. It is ironic that we normally battle early blight. My husband and I have two vegetable gardens, one at our house on Poison Ivy Acres, and another in a community garden about two miles away. We have sprayed the tomatoes in both gardens with Bacillus subtilis because in the past this has allowed us to suppress the early blight enough to give us a good crop of tomatoes.  The late blight has hit in the community garden and we will have no tomatoes from that garden this year. We've harvested all of the potatoes from that garden (80 plants) and those that don't go to the local soup kitchen (Plant a Row!) are being made into twice-baked potatoes and frozen. 

If we have late blight in the home garden it is too soon to see - we've started to spray with copper in case we are ahead of it, but I'm not too optimistic.  The Bacillus subtilis - applied weekly AND right after a heavy rain - gave us no protection from late blight. Next year I'll use copper early on and we'll hope that we don't have such a cool, rainy summer.

all the best,
C.L.
C.L. Fornari
www.gardenlady.com
blog www.wholelifegardening.com
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