Tomato Disaster
The photo of the tomato hornworm with brillian green foliage was taken August 23. Today's photo was taken August 30th. I think I have a terminal case of late blight. If anyone suspects differently, I'm open to comments!
I"d noticed some spots on the bottom leaves of my tomato plants but the plants were SO green and SO flowering and SO fruit laden that I didn't worry about it too much.
Then all of a sudden I have huge dead slimy places and horrid white moldy stuff. I'm SO upset. :(
I cut off some of the diseased portions of the plants today but it's slow going and from what I read there is probably no hope once the blight develops. We've had lots of rain this summer - I watered the garden exactly once, in one bed only, when I had some seedlings in that bed. The rest of the summer it's been very wet.
So, in addition to learning about squash bugs, mexican bean beetles, and japanese beetles, I've learned something else about gardening here. Next year I will space my tomatoes farther apart. I will trim the branches from the bottom foot or so of the plant, and I will sucker them to keep lots of air circulation going on.
I am SO bummed out. So it goes.
Labels: garden
posted by Leslie @ 4:52 PM
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Same problem here... We've almost given up on tomatoes.
What causes that? I didn't trim mine at all and I watered them like the dickens (trying to prevent further damage from blossom end rot) but yet I didn't get a case of the white fuzzies.
Rumonov, I've seen lots of gardens around here with tomatoes looking similar to mine. It's quite depressing.
Ernest, I've been doing more reading on late blight. It's caused in part by soil-borne pathogens, so I will trim the bottom branches of my tomatoes next year to ensure I don't have any touching the ground.
It's also caused by air borne spores which can travel in wind and/or rain storms for miles.
Lots of rain and high humidity cause a favorable environment for late blight. Our humidity has been over 94% all summer - it's been 98% for at least the last four days.
Late blight (I'm not positive that's what I have, but it seems likely) affects both tomatoes and potatoes. In fact, it was the cause of the great potato famine in Ireland in the 1840's.
Since the early 1990's it has become a big problem again, because strains have developed which are resistant to fungicides typically used to fight the disease.
BUT there is good news! The spores mainly over-winter in potato tubers. When the tomato and potato plants die, all spores on the foliage die also. Any infected potatoes should be laid out on a field (where potatoes will not be grown the next year) so they will freeze, or they should be burned. This should kill most of the earth-borne spores.
I either got mine from a neighboring garden, or from some questionable tomato tubers I planted in the spring. I did have several rotted potatoes from that one tuber type when I dug them up this year, and that may be how my tomatoes got the blight.
Here are a couple of good links about late blight:
OSU
ATTRA
We've got nailed with blight this year as well. Hubby's new to gardening in this country so we didn't realize what we were seeing until it took hold in our container garden - with about 100 containers of tomatoes.
It hit just as all of the plants looked like we were headed toward our best tomato year ever. We culled the worst pland and treated the rest with Serenade and a second produt (name escapes me - sorry).
We were able to save a portion of the tomato plants and keep the blight from taking hold in the eggplants and peppers in the adjoining raised bed.
Tough year for our gardens all around, though. We're in SE Ohio and the mild winter has made our bug situation just crazy. The goats are not happy at all about the biting gnats. This morning was cool and was the first time in ages that we could go outside without getting bitten by something or having those eye-bugs try to fly right in our eyes.
Hoping for a good killing winter this year.
Gardening in this region is really tough to figure out. The best info we can get from the neighborhood old timers is that "it's not usually like this". We now realize that "not usually like this" IS apparently the norm.
Lynda
One other thing, Leslie -
This site may have some info that is applicable to your location as well: http://bygl.osu.edu/
Lynda
I wish I could offer help, but I have resigned myself to only short tomato harvests since I don't spray.
My dad who uses occasional daconil fungicide sprays gets a longer harvest.
I may try a fall tomato plant or two when there are less disease and insect problems.
I suppose you are too far north for that.
Sorry about your crop.
Gardening is a challenge sometimes, and a learning experience!
My tomato harvest is coming along fine, but I've lost a lot of foliage and about a dozen tomatoes due to hornworms. I didn't know the caterpillars would actually eat the fruit, but they find it delicious. Too bad you can't use the hornworms in a gumbo or something ... they get to be huge.
Don't get discouraged. Crop failures happen in this grand experiment we call life.
Lynda I'd be crying if I had that many plants hit. Tell your hubby not to feel too bad - I didn't have a clue either because I'd never seen it but it hits so fast I don't know there's anything you can do other than lots of preventive maintenance. I'm going to try Serenade next year. Thanks for the link - SE Ohio is very like my climate here.
FC yes we're too far north for a fall crop. I've seen one tomato in Jung's catalog advertised as late blight resistant. I will probably try that one next year. I hate spraying but I prefer my "last resort" spray over some anonymous huge commercial outfit's "matter of course" spray. Goofy, I suppose :)
Leslie and Ernest - gardening is definitely a learning adventure! Bt will kill hornworms (and other caterpillars) without harming anything else, Ernest. It's marketed under various brand names; I got some called "Dipel" and it seems to do a good job against webworms and cabbage loopers in my brassicas.
Re: the blight.....I had an organic farmer of note tell me that if you have blight, either completely sanitize/bleach/scrub the cages on which those tomato plants were supported OR toss them and start over with a new trellising system. The blight spores do overwinter on the cages. Otherwise, love your website and blog. Very cool.
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