Dealing with tomato and potato blight; and white worm

If you hear your neighbour talking of La Brunissure you know they are having a moan.

Some garden centres are selling a mildew cure, but this will only quicken the pace of the blight and crops will continue to die.

Instead, where possible cut out any grey, mildewed areas, in fact, any foliage that looks damaged and gently spray with a copper based chemical (Bouille Bordelaise), this will usually work; or Dithane 945, available in good garden centres.

With this rain, fruit trees are producing abundance of fruit, but SHOULD it suddenly get hot, keep a close watch on the fruit, otherwise you will find large splits in plums, pears, etc., and then ants, wasps, earwigs, will get into the fruit and ruin the crop.

A customer of mine has had a problem with an apple tree – for some reason the top of the tree rotted and fell off, leaving the trunk hollow and brown. Ver Blanc caused this; in English, White Worm.

The chemical that you could at one time purchase for white worm has now been withdrawn but, if you insert a piece of metal or rusty nail into the hole as far as you can, and then seal the hole with mastic or a big wad of grease, then the tree will not die, but continue to fruit.
We learn something new everyday; it makes gardening interesting as well as a challenge.

By Mike Curtis, An English Nursery in France; 00 33 (0)5 46 33 66 17