Early or Late, It's All Blight to Me

If you are a gardener, you are probably, unfortunately, familiar with blight. It was late blight that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-nineteenth century. Blight's targets are potato and tomato plants, and while early blight is the lesser of two evils, it can seriously compromise home garden crops. Now, I describe myself as a half-assed gardener, but I do not and will not use any chemicals on my plants, all of which begin life at a certified organic nursery. And even if I did, there's not much one can do once blight has begun. Many gardening experts suggest removing the blighted foliage as soon as it appears, and I do that, but the blight persists.

Part of the reason blight has reared its ugly head now is that it thrives in warm, humid, and wet conditions (sort of like a swamp?) and spreads rapidly. We have had so much rain here this summer, and every morning when I check the forecast, there's 100% humidity. Blight wins.

While I am certain that my plants are suffering from early blight, due to the brown spots on the leaves and the yellowing stems, late blight is more deadly, threatening the fruit as well as the foliage. One sign of late blight is stems that turn black instead of yellow, and I couldn't help but notice some very dark stems on my beloved black cherry tomato plants.

So . . . Alternaria solani? Or Phytophthora infestans? (The latter one translates to "plant destroyer.") Pick your fungus. And pick off the leaves.

While the fish rots from the head down, blight-infected plants lose leaves from the bottom up. But other than that difference, there are similarities to be drawn from the blight that is infesting our nation today. Try out some of these synonyms, for example: disease, canker, infestation, fault, flaw, excrescence. Might I suggest that there is a blight in the White House? Better yet, consider non-plant definitions of "blight": something that frustrates plans or hopes; something that impairs or destroys; a deteriorated condition. Recent news that asbestos is poised to make a comeback under this administration's EPA is, in and of itself, enough to support the definition of "something that impairs or destroys." And democracy as we know it is deteriorating before our very eyes. Today's twitter news revealed the President of the United States calling a black woman a "dog." So much for our plans or hopes of a non-racist, non-sexist country. The fish rots from the head down.

What to do? "Pick off and destroy infected leaves," say the gardening experts. Okay, then. Flynn, Manafort, Gates, Papadopoulos, Pruitt, Price, Cohen, Bannon, Gorka. And there are more to come, including Carter Page, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump, Jr. Diligence is required to control the blight.

And then? The gardening wisdom says to rotate the crops. Plant something new in place of the diseased growth. Let's just call the replanting a Blue Wave.