[m1ckz]

will debre netting stop blight getting to tomato plants,,,as its in the air i thought a cage may be good idea

[DD.]

No.

It's airborne through spores which are dust-like. (If not smaller!)

[RichardA]

I wonder if once blight has appeared in  a garden if it can over winter on such things as nettting that might have been in the same general area and then put in a dry shed only to reused again next year ??
I know most potato blight seems to overwinter on heaps of rejected potatoes dumped by farmers -- then they had the nerve to blame gardeners just a few weeks ago ......... but there will other sources of reinfection I assume.
R

[DD.]

Blight survives on living plant material. It won't on stored netting.

On your own plot, this will be things like "volunteer" spuds, infected ones thrown in the compost bin etc.........

[JayG]

The usual advice is that blight spores can only over-winter on living plant material, but being an unseen enemy (until it strikes!) I'm sure I'm not the only gardener who is a bit paranoid about it, so I destroy rather than compost any potentially diseased material.

Not too much you can do about bad farming practices though, apart from hoping for less blight-friendly conditions next year (not every year is as bad as this one has been.)

[cadalot]

First time I had ever seen blight on tomato plants this year when growing in pots in my back garden, other allotment owners say that they have given up growing tomatoes on our site as they have been blighted for the last couple of years - so really wondering if to grow inside a cheap plastic greenhouse down there to try and keep the spores out

[JayG]

Although you can't do anything about the weather and the activities of other growers, there are a few things you can do without resorting to chemicals to improve your chances in the blight "lottery."

One is to grow indoors, another is to make sure the humidity is kept as low as possible and that you don't wet the leaves when watering, and if your luck runs out vigilance to try to remove any blighted leaves or stems as soon as you spot them (managed to salvage nearly all of my "semi-outdoor" Red Alert crop this year - no blight in the greenhouse.)

Small plastic greenhouses are not easy to manage as they heat up and cool down much more quickly than larger ones, but probably worth a try as it could make the difference between success and failure.

[RichardA]

Fully support what JayG says -- I had tomatoes along one side of a 30 foot polytunnel. From first noticing blight on a plant just inside the door to last plant having to come out at far end was about 12 weeks - in effect by removing infected leaves, keeping clean and watering with care I did not lose the season significantly. No chemicals of any kind used.