Fruit and veg in autumn

I'm eking out the last tasty scraps of summer, says Ruth

- Ruth Hayes

FOR the most part it has been a bountiful year in our fruit and veg patch, with welcome gluts of everything from berries and figs to beans and tomatoes.

The combination of warm weather and rain was a blessing, if a mixed one because it set the scene for an outbreak of blight just as the outside tomatoes were starting to come on line.

We managed to mitigate the situation and salvage some tomatoes by removing and binning affected fruits and greenery as soon as we spotted blight, but once it has arrived there is really nothing gardeners can do but remove and bin or bury their infected plants. Never add them to the compost heap because blight is a fungal disease that spreads via its spores.

However, the compost from growbags containing blighted tomatoes is safe to use as a soil conditioner elsewhere in the garden as long as tomatoes and potatoes are not being grown in he same area.