Gardening and Horticulture - Tomato Plants; Late Blight

My tomato crop, about 30 plants of five varieties, was wiped out this week in a period of less than one week, by what we have identified as late blight. I have pulled the plants and will burn them. My concern now is for next year. I can plant tomatoes in another part of the garden but my garden space is not large enough to get completely away from contaminated soil. Is there a fungicide that I can use to treat the soil and the tomato cages? What else can be done? I certainly do not want to let the soil rest for four years as someone suggested.

All of that is not needed. Here is a paper on this problem to enlighten all.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/3000/3102.html

Hope this helps.

For over 10 years the Lucky Horseshoe Farm outside of Hendersonville NC, has tried to grow Heirloom Tomatos for sale. All but the 5 drought years we lost our plants to both the early & late Blights. This must stop this year.

Randy Gartner over at the Experimential Ag center has been working on the Mountain series of tomatos without much luck. We grow Organic & Heirloom but last year no matter what a Farmer sprayed as a Fungicide he had the worst loss in years. One month we had over 10" inches of rain we had rot everywhere.

This year was the straw that broke the camels back, from now on we will be growing all our tomatos in rain pruf row covers with closable ends. This is a piece of cake for the Home Gardener but when you make that 5 X 100 foot rows it's hard. Wind storms & shade cloths for June & July will put any profit we will make into a 2 to 3 year proposition.

I get sick of reading from Northern Farmers who enjoy Tomatos until they get tired of covering their plants from a hard frost. However no one has a Gun to my head to grow Tomatos. We have lost many old friends who came out to buy our old fashioned Tomatos & since that crop is our big calling card row covers it will be until that someday this Blight endemic goes away.

I know a Father Son team who have been growing Tomatos Heirloom inside green houses for the last 4 Seasons. You bet their Fan bills are high but the sales are well worth it between us & Asheville.

The small needle like Spores land on a plants & inject it's payload of Blight, & we have used Copper sprayed at every 2 days. It's the new growth of tips that out grow the fungicide, that get's us everytime. Keep the rain & fog off, & have Tomatos until hard a frost kills them. I can live with that not dead & dying plants in July with their heavy loads of green Tomatos.