Fact Sheets

This full-color, 8-page publication describes specialty or novel vegetables that fit well in the current state and national promotion for vegetables, Buy Local, Buy Fresh, as well as provides marketing tips.

This guide is intended to help growers interpret soil test recommendations for using organic nutrient sources. The information presented applies to both organic and conventional farms.

Use this document to calculate organic nutrient source applications based on your soil test and compost test.

We all know the benefits of plastic mulch. Not only does it keep the weeds down, it warms up the soil giving us earlier (and more) tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and other heat loving veggies. But it costs us. Farmers estimate it costs $25-100 an acre for labor and disposal of plastic mulch. A possible alternative to black plastic mulch is biodegradable film mulches that look and act much like black plastic, but instead of ripping them up in the fall, you till them into the soil and the microbes degrade the material, leaving you a clean field in the spring.

This fact sheet describes the history of this devastating disease as well as how to identify and manage late blight on tomatoes and potatoes in the home garden. Additional pictures of late blight can be found by clicking the Vegetable Disease Images link on the Vegetable and Small Fruit Production homepage. Hardcopies of this fact sheet can be obtained through Penn State Ag Publications at pubs.cas.psu.edu.

Effectively growing tomatoes and potatoes requires understanding and responding to Late Blight. This trifold brochure on late blight is primarily for gardeners. It was developed for growers so they can give to gardeners who ask about late blight and their regular (CSA) customers, as well as have available at market. The brochure covers why everyone growing tomatoes and potatoes needs to understand how contagious and destructive this disease is, how to identify symptoms and how to respond when it occurs.