late blight

a very sad and disappointing thing happened on many farms around the country this summer: late blight. late blight (Phytophthora infestans) is a fungal infection that affects tomatoes and potatoes. once it hits, it devastates entire crops. the fungus came to wisconsin aboard a massive shipment of starter tomato plants from a large industrial farm. once plants infected with the fungus grow, the spores become airborne, and any susceptible plants in the area can become infected. our csa farm, vermont valley, was not spared (they didn't get plants from the infectious industrial farm, but were infected by airborne spores). our trusty hard-working farmers lost nearly 100% of their tomato crop. fortunately, they saved the potatoes by acting quickly to plow under all the above-ground potato greens before the plants were infected.

we love tomatoes, and receiving the news mid-summer that we would see very few tomatoes in our weekly csa share was a terrible disappointment. but worse yet was seeing the sad sickly plants. we visited vermont valley this past weekend to pick more basil than you can imagine (and some tomatilloes and hot peppers), and seeing the tomato plants made us feel very sad.

sad tomato plants.

david harvests hot peppers.

baa.

interestingly, late blight is the same infection responsible for ireland's potato famine in the mid-19th century. oh, the dangers of monoculture.