Southern blight

I just wanted to give you an update on the tomato plants that I grew from your seeds. All of them germinated and grew nicely until our wet summer has given my garden a bad case of the Southern blight. It killed all of my beans and tomatoes but the Mexican tommy toes (Punta Banda) were the last to succumb to the disease. I was able to get one picking off of all of the varieties but many pickings off of the tommy toes. So I believe we can say that the Punta Bandas are resistant to Southern blight. Thankfully my grandparents tomatoes are doing well so I am going to have enough in the pantry for the winter, though just barely. Now for the question, if you could only plant two or three paste tomatoes varieties which ones would you plant. I have only had my farm for one year so my garden area is small but expanding, so I can only plant 30 tomato plants. I have tried many different varieties but was wondering what your favorites were.

Staci Hill
Murfreesboro, Arkansas

Is your soil well drained? Often folks mistake plants dying from wet roots for Southern blight. With Southern blight, you will have plants that suddenly wilt and die. On examination, you’ll find white mats of fungus at soil level and lesions on the plant stems right at soil level. It does affect both tomatoes and beans. (To help prevent it, pull and burn any affected plants then lay a sheet of clear plastic over the area and weight it down with boards or rocks. Leave in place for about 6 weeks. This will “cook” the disease spores and usually does the trick for next year’s crop.) Punta Banda is pretty free of early blight too. And it’s a very productive tomato. In fact, it is one of our very favorite paste tomatoes although it doesn’t look like a paste tomato, being round, not oblong. It is very meaty and its small size makes it perfect to pick and toss into our Victorio tomato strainer, which removes the seeds and skins. The purée requires much less cooking down than many other paste tomato purée. Another of our favorites is San Marzano and also the hybrid Super Marzano, developed from it. — Jackie

Elderberry pie

I’ve made elderberry jam for two days now. Need your recipe for elderberry pie, please. Looked through your books and anthologies, can’t find it. Do you use your canned elderberries for the pie?

Draza Knezevich
Miramonte, California

Here’s one recipe for elderberry pie that’s very easy. Use fresh elderberries.

pastry for a 2-crust pie
1 quart ripe elderberries
1 cup sugar
a little flour

Wash and drain the berries. Stir sugar well into fruit and turn into a pie pan lined with crust. Sprinkle a little flour over the filling to absorb juice, and cover with an upper crust. Bake for 40 minutes (400° F for 15 minutes; 375° F until done). Serve cold with a little sugar sifted over top or with whipped cream..

To make an elderberry pie with canned elderberries, drain and reserve 1 cup juice. Make a paste in a saucepan using 3 Tbsp. cornstarch, 1 Tbsp. lemon juice, and reserved juice, a little added at a time until all has been used. Add 1 cup sugar (a little less if you canned the elderberries in a heavy syrup). Stir well and slowly bring to a boil and cook until thick. Remove from heat and add elderberries. Pour into a pie crust and top with the top crust. Bake at 375° F until done.

When baking an elderberry pie, it’s a good idea to put the pie tin on a cookie sheet as it will sometimes bubble over, making a mess of your oven, — Jackie

6 COMMENTS

  2. Nancy,

    I roll the elderberries between my hands, a few at a time. While it doesn’t get all the stems, it does get a lot of them making picking stems much easier.

  3. We have lots of elderberries around here so one year I decided to make some jam. My neighbor said he never removes the tiny little stem from the berries so I did not either. It was AWFUL!!! I pitched it all. Never tried again. Is there an easy way to get tiny little stems off>

  4. When I was a child, we all loved it when the wild elderberries ripened. Getting all the stems from those tiny berries was worth the trouble when my mother, then I, baked that pie! We always added a teaspoon or two of vinegar, and a pat of butter. I was very lucky, we also had wild strawberries. It took all us girls (4) a good long time to pick enough because they were tiny. But their flavor was intense, so much better than cultivated berries. They went into strawberry shortcakes. Biscuit shortcakes, berries, a scoop of vanilla, and whipped cream. We also had apples that had gone wild, very sour, made amazing pies, and a few blackberries, dewberries, and raspberries. I really miss those days. Next year I hope to put in some elderberry bushes in the back yard. There is one in the parkland nearby, but those belong to the birds!

  5. Staci, because Southern blight is a soil disease I’m thinking that a powder fungicide applied in the planting hole or trench as you put your plants in the ground might help, as would a dusting around the stem on the soil surface. As with all fungal diseases, proactive measures are much more effective than trying to treat plants later on. Solarization might help because the fungus lives close to the surface but I’d use clear plastic instead of black, and check the soil temp before removing it. I’m wondering whether a physical barrier on your tomato stems would keep the fungus from attaching – maybe spraying with WiltPruf or wrapping the stems. I’d prune the side stems off the bottom 12 to 14 inches of each plant. Because the fungus attaches to plant materials in the soil and lives in the upper few inches, I’d try deep plowing and removing all plant residues at the end of your growing season. Any plants you have that are affected should be dug up with the soil around them and put in plastic trash bags, the bags sealed and disposed of. Because this blight is such a commercial issue there are beginning to be resistant food crop varieties.

  6. I grew Punta Banda for the first time this year and love them. Mine are lying on bare ground as an experiment, and have no diseases. There are hundreds and hundreds of tomatoes. They use almost no supplemental water (great for drought areas), blossomed early, ripened quickly, have a wonderful old fashioned tomato taste, and keep setting more fruit. I used them in eggplant ragout without peeling them, and the peels were thin and cooked to a mush very quickly. Whether fresh eating or cooking, this tomato is a winner. My San Marzano and Super Marzano are just now ripening. The Punta Banda were ripe starting a month ago. Although they struggled in the 40 degree temps when first planted (and were not protected), they recovered quickly. I’d call this tomato a winner in difficult growing conditions.

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