My tomato vines are loaded with the biggest tomatoes I've ever seen! They are huge -100 plants. But all of a sudden the leaves and small branches are turning black and dying. The leaves turn yellow and then get black spots over night. The tomatoes are fine. What can I do organically to save them. I don't see any bugs on them. They're mulched well and we have had excessive rain (Last year we had drought and blossom end rot and sunscald.) There's no blossom end rot. Will covering the tomatoes with floating row cover keep them from sunscalded. Is there any hope. How discouraging this is. thanks for your advice.

-- Cindy (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), August 08, 2000

Answers

I wqould go ahead and pick my tomatoes and put them in single layers in boxes. Store them in the shade someplace, like in the garage or under the shed. Sort them every couple of days and go ahead and use the ripe ones like you would have if you had picked them ripe from the vine. If they appear to be dark green, I would use those to make green tomato relish or "apple" pie or slice and fry them. We used to do this in the fall of the year before the first frost. You should continue to have fresh tomatoes this way for a month to six weeks at least. I don't know of anything that will save the tomato plants because I don't know what is wrong with them. I suppose the plants could be drowning. Is water standing around the plants or does the soil smell sour when it is disturbed? If so, the roots may have rotted off the plants. In that case, there is no way to save them. You might try pulling up a few plants at random and looking at the root system to see if they seem to have enough roots. If they still seem to have good root systems and the soil does appear soggy or soured, you might try to cultivate around the healthiest looking ones and try to save them. Good luck.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), August 08, 2000.

My plants did the same thing-lost about 100 plants-and half our hoped for crop. We asume it was some kind of blight.

We had hot very humid rain here in MO this year-not as hot and dry as typical for July...probably the weather is to blame.

i know your discourgaement well-between that and the loss of half our corn (locals tellme it "soured" on us because of the weather.), and the bumper crop of weeds as tall as me :), I declared last week I would never plant another seed because I was quitting gardening altogether! :) That lasted about 12 hours...and then God sent me some encouragement by way of my dear husband who said, " I know you- and you will plant again...I am sorry for your discouragement-now lets plan that fall garden together!" What a guy!

Somewhere ther is a silver lining to that cloud-don't let it keep you down!

Peace and blessings, Sarah

-- Sarah Cate (heartsongacres@juno.com), August 08, 2000.

I was searching on the web and it's sounds like you might have late blight.

-- Amber (ambrosia75_@hotmail.com), August 08, 2000.

Thanks Green and Sarah for the advice and encouragement. I talked to a couple of old-timers and they have the same thing. They did call it blight. I told my husband I wouldn't give up, he said "I know it". Tomorrow, I'll pick and pray and be thankful for the ones we get. Caroline Ingalls (Little House on the Prairie). Said there's no great loss without some small gain. It will be intersting to see what the small gain is in this case. One of the people affected by this blight sells his produce in Cincinnati. So his loss is greater than mine. A friend told me her friend who sells organic produce in Cincinnati lost all of her garlic and squash this year. Gardening has lots of life lessons in it, doesn't it?

-- Cindy (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), August 08, 2000.

The extention agent in our area (Madison WI) said that with the moist June that we had there have been a lot of problems with blight. The only suggestions that she had was to remove the bad leaves and mulch the plants so that the soil can not splash up onto the leaves and infect them. I removed leaves, it didnt seem to do much good. At least they have some tomatoes. I planted twice as many as usual to sell some so I will have about a 1/3 as many tomatoes as usual. Mother nature is still in charge. TAmi in WI

-- Tami Bowser (windridg@chorus.net), August 08, 2000.

I was thinking Septoria leaf spot at first,but that usually kills the vine from the bottom branches up.We've been spraying ours with liquid copper to keep it under control.I don't know if it'd help for blight,but perhaps it's worth trying.Well,hope you still get a decent crop,God bless,~~~Tracy~~~

-- Tracy Jo Neff (tntneff@ifriendly.com), August 08, 2000.

Is Fusarium wilt the same as blight? I have called this problem Fusarium.

I had lots of this described problem last year when I took too long to mulch and too long to clip off ANY leaves touching soil or mulch (varieties were Marglobe, Mortgage Lifter, San Marzano, Brandywine and Bonnie Best). It does seem to be dependent on which varieties you plant.

This year, I mulched immediately (as I transplanted) and then trimmed leaves judiciously (on Matina, Caspian Pink, and Riesentraube) -- no problems yet (even though some branches are now touching the mulch). On the volunteer Marzanos, I have this blight because I have not trimmed their leaves. They are next to the other clear ones -- I am interested to see if it spreads or if the 3 new varieties are somewhat resistant.

-- Mike O (olsonmr@yahoo.com), August 09, 2000.

My Sept./Oct. issue of Organic Gardening says that interplanting with garlic chives could prevent bacterial wilt, according to the Journal of Chemical Ecology. (vo. 25, no.11, 1999, pp.2409-79). It appearently produces some kind of bacteria-inhibiting chemicals in its roots. Maybe this will help for next year.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), August 09, 2000.

The Sept/Oct issue of Organic Gardening has an article that says that the Journal of Chemical Ecology has shown that interplanting garlic chives with tomatoes inhibits bacterial wilt. Note theis is GARLIC CHIVES and not just garlic or just chives. Maybe this'll help next year.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), August 09, 2000.

So it is not just ours? Our plants were beautiful, too--and now they are getting really sick looking. I have noticed other gardens have the same problem. And the plants are loaded with tomatoes. It doesn't act like Fusarium; that hit much earlier than this, and started from the bottom up. The plants never did get big and healthy looking, last year. We have a lot of fruit turning black, where it attaches to the stem.

-- Leann Banta (thelionandlamb@hotmail.com), August 09, 2000.

Up here in the cool and wet, wet northwest, blight is a way of life. We frequently put our tomatoes under cover to keep the rain off. It's usually hard to get much harvest at all, but we keep trying. One woman mulches heavily with straw to keep off the dirt and puts them under cover to keep off the rain. Seems to work.

-- Laura Jensen (lauraj@seedlaw.com), August 09, 2000.

OOOps on the double posting! My computer had a caniption fit halfway through the process and I thought I'd better re-send.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), August 10, 2000.

Our first crop of tomatoes had a fast blight also. The only thing that I was able to isolate was that the plants all came from a texas nursery. We replanted with local raised plants and the blight hasn't reoccured.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), August 10, 2000.

Wow, Sarah, I think your husband went to the school for how to be a great husband. What a thoughtful thing for him to say/do. Sounds like he is definitely a keeper.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), August 11, 2000.

Up here in the Pacific Northwest, losing tomato plants to blight is more common that getting ripe tomatoes.

This year, I started my own from seed using cool weather, short season varieties. Moskovic and Siberian and Borgese. I use a half- cover on cold rainy nights.

So far, they are doing great, loaded with green fruit, some turning color and promising vine ripened tomatoes.

I will be sharing with my neighbors as they gave up on tomatoes years ago.

-- Laura (gsend@hotmail.com), August 12, 2000.