Burn the Blight

Tomato Blight is starting to hit the allotment. The only way to handle this is to either bag the affected plants, bury them or burn them. I chose the latter option.

Fortunately I have plenty of Silver Birch Wood stored on the plot (which I really wanted to use in a Hugelkulture setup) but with the plot infested with bindweed, I can't really use that option. So I used the wood to get a nice hot fire going.

Being an old Boy Scout the one thing I do know how to do is make a good fire. Where a lot of people go wrong is that they build a fire so that it gets lit at the bottom. Wrong way to do it. If you want a hot almost smokeless fire, build it so that you light it from the top.

In this case there was a base of large wood logs (that had actually been left on the ground and weeds had grown though them - hence the grass in the picture above), then I put the tomatoes on, followed by smaller sticks, and then the kindling on the top. The reason you do it this way is that the heat drives out the moisture before the fire burns down enough to set it rest alight. This way very little smoke is produced. Less annoyance for the neighbours, and for me - being asthmatic.