Disposing of blighted tomatoes, plants and grow bags…

I’m almost certain from looking at the pictures of blight and reading about what it looks like, that this is what attacked our tomatoes this year.  From what I’m told though, it could be over exposure to extremes of weather - ours were grown outdoors in our back garden after they became too big for our small plastic greenhouse - or else irregular or over watering.  Leaves went brown and died, stalks look back and lots of the fruit have brown bumpy patches at their tops or sides

Anyway, I’m assuming it’s blight and we’ve taken precautions and got off all the fruit that still looks unaffected and  made green tomato chutney out of it.  However, with regards to the blighted stems and fruit…

1)  I understand this should go in landfill and not be composted?
2)  What about the grow bags?  Will the soil be affected by this fungus, or is it okay to recycle / compost this soil?

Blight can only live on live plant material so you can happily compost everything with no fear of carrying blight over to next year.

I hope so! I've just chopped up loads of blighted tomatoes foliage stems and leaves for my bin.

Quote from: sunshineband on August 29, 2011, 18:11

Quote from: Salmo on August 29, 2011, 18:06

Blight can only live on live plant material so you can happily compost everything with no fear of carrying blight over to next year.

I hope so! I've just chopped up loads of blighted tomatoes foliage stems and leaves for my bin.

|RHS recommend burning rather than composting. Blight can form oospores, a "resting" form that can exist in the soil away from plant material. Most infection is caused by wind blown spores from elsewhere.

 What do the oospores do?

Quote from: NN2Blue on August 29, 2011, 19:31

Quote from: sunshineband on August 29, 2011, 18:11

Quote from: Salmo on August 29, 2011, 18:06

Blight can only live on live plant material so you can happily compost everything with no fear of carrying blight over to next year.

I hope so! I've just chopped up loads of blighted tomatoes foliage stems and leaves for my bin.

|RHS recommend burning rather than composting. Blight can form oospores, a "resting" form that can exist in the soil away from plant material. Most infection is caused by wind blown spores from elsewhere.

 What do the oospores do?

Hang around a lot longer whilst remaining viable - sprouting, if that's the right word, when conditions are right. Kingsthorpe Park Allotments here in Northampton have been battered with blight for the past few years. NOT this year, so far, touch wood. Everybody's toms and any potato foliage that is still left, is looking good! 

You could put the growbags in the compost, but as they are already useable you could dig them in to your growing area/beds as a soil conditioner.

They are very useful in this way and are quite safe to use.