The Great Tomato Famine

The New York Times reported on July, 28 that "a severe outbreak of late blight fungus in tomatoes, first noted in June, is sweeping through farms and gardens in the Northeast." This is the same disease that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 19th century. Now it appears it is coming back with a vengeance. Nine days after the story was published I've found that all of my tomato plants have either just become infected or are totally rotten. The worst part is that while the plants look dead, the tomatoes themselves look perfectly healthy. This made it all the more hard to destroy the plants, but ultimately it was the only option.

Here is a photo of the damage.



The only way to ensure that my garden doesn't spread the fungus to others is to completely destroy the infected plants. While there are many ways to do this, we opted to burn them.


Here are pictures from before the infection and after we chopped down the plants.
Before:

After:



If you suspect that your tomatoes are infected with Late Season Blight check out this page for more information.
http://www.umassvegetable.org/LateBlightAlertforTomatoandPotato.html