2009 - This garden did not suffer from Late Blite on tomatoes or vines
(2009 was the year most gardens were badly damaged by Blite - many were entirely lost do to it)
Unfortunately for us, these are not pictures of our garden - they are pictures taken of a families garden who lived a few miles from us. - We are happy for them though, as they planted and cultivated wisely they did not suffer from late blite

If you were quick thinking then you were able to at least "make lemons out of lemonade".
We canned approximately 150 quarts that we made into green salsa. (go with the 'simplified...' version). We also diced up probably 50+ pounds worth of green tomatoes in a food processor and put it into zip lock bags and froze it in the freezer and also made approximately 20 quarts of picked green tomatoes.
Despite what people told us and information we read online, we did not have any problem with it keeping once canned or frozen. It's approaching a year later now and we are still using it right out of the freezer or the can, and we also found it great to cook with and flavor food. By the way, the tomatoes that were showing signs of blight (brown/bruised looking spots) we simply cut off that part of the tomato.
We also did not use tomatoes that were in the further stages of blite with the spores/'nasty white mold'/ that will begin to develop when the tomato skin starts to rot and split in the blight spots (usually starts happening around day 3).
Another 'go against the flow' move we made was to do nothing with our dead and dying blight stricken plants. Suggestions ranged from, "Remove them - being carefully not to agitate and spread spores," "Burn them", "Don't put the diseased plants or tomatoes in your compost", etc... Well, we even contradicted the last one by throwing all the blight cuttings from the tomatoes we caned or froze into our compost. On many occasions at the end of the season the dead and dying plants and rotten spore infested tomatoes were thrown into our big compost crate as well.

My "stubborn, foolish, distrust, and go against the flow-ness" became quite a controversy within my sphere, Even LeeAnn the majority owner, planter and care giver of the garden didn't back me up. Yup, I was definently 'alone in my principles' on that one. I will admit a small part of me was concerned and still is but when I looked at trying to contain and control the problem it not only seamed but really was a logistical nightmare. We had a relatively big garden and it would have take alot of effort to make a difference. Mater of fact LeeAnn was so bent on the mainstreemers being correct in their warings that she attempted to do something about it on here own but angrily gave up a few hours later when the magnitude of the futile undertaking set in.

So, we will see this year if my intuition served me well or not. If we have reoccurring blight despite our new preventative measures (more spacing, plant beneficial flowers between plants - consistent watering - hopefully enough sun light?!?! *unlike 2009, etc...)
Here are a few key reasons for my "Do Noting" stand. We had a green house for the first time in 2009. We had some tomatoes growing and producing in the greenhouse as well. They did not show signs of blight when nearing the end of the growing season yet almost all the other tomato plants around them on the outside of the greenhouse were dead or dying of. Variables: The plants in the green house stayed warm, and did not have to deal with the cold and wet conditions like the plants outside. Furthermore the plants in the greenhouse had constant air flow from fans. The plants outside of course did not have this exceptional opportunity. Observations: Plants on the ends of the rows in the garden had a little better survival rate or at the very least a slow death rate. (by the way we planted close together, something we will not do again to avoid potential moisture and airflow problems leading to things like late blite) Some plants actually survived and or re-grew from partially still living tomato vines (new shoots we leaves and blossoms were developing from the survivors) These survivors were again only located on the outer parts of the garden and most were plants that had been caged separately from each other. [more space - more air flow - little to no direct cross contact]. Although these plants had blight infection we moved what were blight damaged but showing new growth into the green house with the healthy plants. (partially again to try and call out a misbelieve with a bold face contradiction play. As i suspected the pants did fine together. The "uninfected" plants were not affected by the "infected" plants. The infected plants that had developing fruit occasionally would produce tomatoes that would ripen and then if not picked before allowed to ripen too much would begin to begin to develop blite. (this kind of reminds me of a beater veichel, that it was usually pretry dependable but once and a while it would throw a wrench into your plans) I also observed that on one occasion the fans got left off for about 24 hours and man! did the mold/spores and blight  ever rear it's ugly head then. I also for a few days keep the fans on low instead of high because i didn't like how fast the top of the soil would dry out and again, blight & spore/mold city, but things calmed back down and stayed self manageable when the fans were turned back to high.

The variables and the observations gathered tell me thus far that blight is more a condition and a symptom of un-ideal tomato/potato conditions rather than so much a 'devastating  disease' that must be quarantined. The crazy/scarry thing about blight tomatoes though is that you can pick what looks like perfectly good tomatos, set them on shelves to ripen and in a few days they will go from perfect healthy looking tomatoes to developing brown spots and quickly proceding down hill from there. (If your going to turn your lemons into lemonade too, then you need to start doing frozen green tomato sauce chopped from the food processor or canned salsa/relish - or pickled green tomatoes *we did that too - they turned out delicious and crunchy - texture and taste as familiar as a caned valasic pickle -- any how, do any or all of these food storage methods right away with your green tomatoes as the produce and develop up untill early stages of blight - do new batches every day to keep ahead of the blighting process of your tomatoes and plants. Keep on top of it and work fast or you can forget being able to make or save much from it. (by the way, smaller tomatoes lessed developed that don't yet have the juicy inside, cut into half moon like slices worked the best for us when we maded the canned pickled tomatoes.

So any how back to the "crazy/scary" bit. If perfectly green tomatoes sitting on the selves picked from plants that also looked almost perfectly healthy could turn to blight in a few days after sitting on shelves before there was any hope of them being able to become ripe, then what does that say... was it a disease, is it malignant and since we did not take careful steps to isolate it from the rest of our garden and keep it out of our future compost is it going to recure? Again, a part of me worries, but a bigger part of me says no, if the conditions are right and the growing season is normal and ideal, then there will be nothing to worry about. Nature has cycles. God designed all this and He said "it is good". I trust it is good. We too often tamper with nature trying to outsmart with science and chemicals etc... and other times just in ignorance and as creatures of habit, we can wear out or use up something good. So these types of things are factors also to let the reader know I certainly don't have a good understanding of but am at least aware of. In conclusion I just want to say... I'll cross my fingers and condictions are good and blight is not an issue for others in the season of 2010 but yet it seems to plague us, then I will be the first and possibly the only one to admit I was wrong. If we have success then glory to God.

-Dave Engels (03-25-2010)