Tomatoes: don't let yours be a blight magnet. Photograph: justinbader/Flickr/Some rights reserved
Tomatoes are in the air. Both River Cottage's Mark Diacono and I wrote about them in last weekend's magazine. Mark's article was about getting the tastiest fruit, and mine was about germination. What Mark only mentioned in passing, and I failed to mention altogether, was blight. There is little point getting perfect germination or growing the tastiest cultivars if they are all going to get blackened and inedible a week before they ripen.
I have had an email from reader Jean Simpson on the subject, to kick us off. She writes:
Maskotka (seeds from Thompson & Morgan) was the only variety not affected last year. The flavour is superb and they are easy in a large pot or hanging basket. I do give them a bit of shelter under a plastic lean to.
I too got a half decent crop last year, but I had learned from my mistakes. In the summer of 2007 I was pregnant and having desperate (if surprisingly sensible) cravings for tomatoes. I didn't want thin, hard supermarket slicers; I wanted lumpy, fat, ugly, deep red, beef tomatoes, dripping with juice, and lots of them. I bought myself a packet of 'Costoluto Fiorentino' and planted them all around the garden and they were tantalisingly close to ripening when blight hit the lot.
Last year I grew all of my tomatoes in pots in the covered area outside the back door. It is entirely protected from rain, but so open to the elements that I thought blight might sneak in. I wasn't so ambitious I only grew cherry types that ripen early but even when blight struck elsewhere, they didn't get it.
I expect it will be a summer of perfect, Mediterranean, tomato-ripening weather, and none of this will matter, but just in case, please share your tomato tales, along with your tips for best cultivars and growing conditions. Together we can beat this thing.
