thought I'd try posting photos instead of links:

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I don't know what zone you're in, but my tomatoes normally look like that as it gets closer to fall.

I often have a hard time figuring out when to pull them all out. I think taste is an important factor, but there's always still tomato sauce!

The problem is, now its time to put in onions, potatoes, greens...and there often isn't space unless you pull things out.

Yes, sadly you have been hit with late blight (as opposed to early blight which is a very different fungus and less lethal). You can see the fungal spores in some of your photos. You'll find detailed instructions how how to dispose of your plants and fruit over on the Growing Tomatoes forum here.

If you have been following all the nationwide news on it you know you aren't alone - if that is any comfort.

And if you want info on why late blight fruit should not be canned you'll find discussions on that part over on the Harvest Forum.

Both are linked directly from the top of this forum's front page - see "Related Forums".

Dave

Thanks Dave, you helped me out with a question about adding citric acid also (what a year it's been!)

Are you pretty sure it looks like LB and not Anthracnose?

I'll check into how to dispose of the plants. . .sigh. .

The black spot on the ripe fruit in the second pic does look like Anthracnose.

The spots on the leaves in the first pic look rather like Septoria, which also tends to spread rapidly and turn the lower leaves of tomatoes brown and crispy at this time of year. But it's hard to see well enough in these pics to distinguish from Late Blight.

Other possibilities are Bacterial Speck or Bacterial Spot, but those would both cause numerous spots on the fruit -- I mean many, many small spots on many fruits both ripe and unripe, not just one or two largish spots on a ripe fruit as with Anthracnose.

In the last two pics I just see a lot of dead leaves and green vines with ripe fruit, which is common with Septoria at this time of year if antifungal sprays haven't been applied over the summer.

Are there any wide black streaks on the stems? Septoria causes small black spots on the stems that can run together into a mass of black spots, but that looks much different from the black Magic-Marker type stain that Late Blight causes on a stem.

A better closeup pic of some other spotty leaves and/or stems that aren't dead yet would be helpful. Also any more spots on any of the fruit, especially green fruit.

Septoria doesn't usually affect the fruit, so if you have a lot of spots everywhere except the fruit, I would suspect Septoria.

Septoria would mean that you have to do your best to get every bit of diseased plant material out of the garden at the end of the season, and it wouldn't hurt to start doing that now. Unlike Late Blight (which can only overwinter on living plant tissue), Septoria can overwinter on dead plants. It will be back early next spring if you don't clean up really well. If it is Septoria, it probably would be a good idea to start spraying some kind of antifungal early next year anyway even if you rotate the tomatoes to a different part of the garden, because I don't think you can get ALL of the infected dead leaves out of this year's patch and Septoria spores will be carried on the wind to your new plants in the spring.

Try searching Google for pics and descriptions of Septoria, because I strongly suspect that unless your plants match the pics of Late Blight in the link below:.

Here is a link that might be useful: pics of Late Blight on tomatoes

thanks bcday! I'll get some better photos up.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd take a sample into my county extension guy if he's in today & I'll post whatever info I get there.

I contacted my county extension agent & emailed the photos--he said I definitely have Anthracnose, and what looks very much like early blight (which oddly enough, usually appears late in the season!).

Not sure how much of a better scenario that is than late blight, but I'll be pulling the plants in any case and sending to the landfill. He said if I were an experienced composter I could compost the plants, but I'm not, so I'm not ;-) There are fact sheets at my extension's website, so I'll be following the advice there re fungicides.

thanks again for all info!