Tomato Blight

Question

I live on Long Island, NY. Last year my garden had major problems with tomato blight, probably because of a very wet spring. I was never able to get the problem under control, but my garden did yield a decent amount of fruit anyways. I have read that blight can live in the soil and return the following year. Is there a way to treat the soil so that won’t happen (I don’t have any other place to plant, so crop rotation is not an option. )?

Answer 1

There really is not much in the way of fixes for blight that do not require the beds to either be rotated or left empty. Solarization can be done (https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/projects/how-to-solarize-garden-beds-to-eliminate-garden-pests-in-the-soil.htm) but that has to happen during the sunniest time of the year, which is also your growing season.

Have you considered container gardening for a season to allow the beds to purge the blight? The containers could feasibly be placed right on top of the contaminated soil, as long as you took steps to make sure the soils did not cross contaminate. Here are some articles that may help you if you consider container gardening for a season:
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/vgen/quick-guide-to-container-vegetable-gardening.htm
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/special/containers/designing-your-container-vegetable-garden.htm
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/special/containers/upside-down-gardening.htm

You may also want to look into only planting blight resistant varieties. This reduces the number of varieties you can choose from, but at least you would be able to grow your favorite vegetables without having to deal with the blight.