tomato blight

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    Bummer. Tomato Blight.

    ByElizabeth

    I just went to my little plot at the community garden, and the base of the brandywine tomatoes were blackened.  No doubt what it was:  the dreaded blight.  So I removed the plant, carefully putting it in the trash instead of the garden compost.  Not clear yet whether Mr. Stripey is infected.  The grape tomatoes are fine.

    I could think that this is a sign that I should start cutting down my nightshade vegetable intake to see if doing so will ease my arthritis, but it isn’t a sign.  Even if it is not a sign, I can see whether being without the temptation of a luscious tomato crop makes it easier to shift my diet.

    I am grateful that I got such a wonderful harvest at the beginning of the summer, and I am doubly grateful that I am not dependent on just my own garden (or even on just local produce) to eat well.

    But for a few moments, I think I will just allow myself to be disappointed.

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    Tomato Blight (and the web of life)

    ByElizabeth

    One of the conjectured reasons for the amazingly quick spread of tomato blight in the northeast this year (besides the crazy weather) is the upsurge in home gardeners.  It is wonderful that so many people are growing their own tomatoes.  If they buy the plants from a “big box” retailer — a retailer that gives less care and attention to the quality and health of the plants and more to easy shipping and cheap prices — then the new plants entering the eco-system are more likely harbingers of disease.

    When we do anything, we have to be conscious of how it fits in with the world as a whole.  From seed to meal, how we get our food impacts ourselves and our health.  I am lucky so far with my tomato plants.  I bought seedlings from local, organic farmers.  I am checking them every few days for signs of blight.  My harvest has been delicious and abundent.

    In reading about the blight, I am painfully reminded that what we eat impacts the earth, the animal and plant life that was displaced for the growth of food, the humans that labored to bring it to our table.  What we choose to eat, over our life, can dramatically shift our life physically, energetically, and emotionally.

    Don’t forego homegrown tomatoes and other easy to grow urban foodstuff, but be careful about where you buy it, how you tend it, and understand that you have entered into the agricultural network.

    As Chief Seattle did NOT say, “man does not weave this web of life.  We are but one thread within it.   Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”