Shankins,

I feel for you, i am having a rough time also. This is my first year to go chemical free. I just cant do it, atleast not yet, I need to learn more. I have a big case of Septoria, which I thing is much like Early Blight. This is the first year I have ever had fugus on pepper plants. I am bringing out the fungucide. I dont have a lot of faith of saving anything, I let it get too big of a start.

I think a lot of my problem was that I planted too early.
It looked like it was going to rain for ever and I had already bought my plants and they were getting too large to keep in the house. I put on my rubber boots and planted in mud that was hard to walk in, hoping the rain would quit any day.

I knew better than to pull a stunt like that, I should have thrown the plants away and waited for good weather.
I have been getting tomatoes for a couple of weeks, but they are not very good tasting. My best looking plants are Pompeii and Burgess Trip-L-Crop. I have one of each and have never grown either before.

Larry

Sharon,

To confirm whether or not you have spider mites, hold a sheet of white paper under the affected leaves and shake the leaves. Little tiny red dots (about the size of the 'dot' over the letter "i" on this page, should fall from the leaves to the plants if you have spider mites.

If you have mites, the easiest way to control them is to hit the undersides of the leaves with a strong spray of water from the water hose. I use a nozzle on the end of the hose that concentrates the water for a stronger "blast". You can blast the plants with water daily and it will help a lot. Spider mites prefer hot, dry, dusty areas so the moisture helps reduce their numbers too. I'd then follow up by spraying with a Spinosad spray following the directions on the bottle. You also could spray the undersides of the leaves with neem oil a few days later if you feel spraying with water and Spinosad doesn't help.

When I have to use neem or insecticial soap or any other foliar spray (other than a fungicide or spinosad or compost tea/Garrett Juice) in very hot weather, I always spray one plant first, wait for 24 hours and watch for signs of foliar damage. If no foliar damage is apparent within 24 hours then I go on and spray the other plants. I am very cautious about spraying in high temps/intense sunlight because I've have some organic sprays like neem oil and insecticidal soap burn foliage quite badly in high heat/intense sunlight conditions.

I'm not real comfortable with the late blight diagnosis simply because I've grown tomatoes for about 25 years as an adults, and for my entire childhood/young adulthood prior to that with my dad and other relatives and have very, very seldom seen late blight. Lots of early blight over the years, but almost no late blight. Do your fruits look pretty similar to the 'late blight' photo on the TAMU tomato solver Green Fruit Page? And, did you look at the Red Fruit page to see if there was a similar rot? Sometimes, especially when it is very hot and has been very wet/humid, I see "Red Fruit" diseases on fruit that's still green.

The symptoms you describe sound more like anthracnose or black mold or maybe buckeye rot to me if you're only seeing symptoms on the fruit and not the foliage/stems. Usually if it is late blight, you'll see symptoms on the leaves as well as the fruit. And, the terms 'early blight' for alternaria and 'late blight' for phytopthora can be misleading, because they often appear at more or less the same time.

For fungal issues on tomato plants, chlorothalonil, AKA Daconil, is the answer, but it is a chemical and is not considered organic if that is important to you. Good organic fungicides include copper and sulfur sprays. And, Daconil (you'll commonly find it in stores as Ortho Garden Disease Control) is most effective if used as a regularly-sprayed preventive from the first day your plants go into the soil. It helps control disease by coating the leaves/foliage and preventing the fungal spores from attaching to the leaves. It will not be as effective if you start spraying it now, but sometimes it can stop the diseases from progressing and spreading.

One problem for which there is not a good solution is when you have spider mites in combination with fungal foliar and fruit diseases. Why? To control fungal diseases, you should do all you can to keep the vines dry. To chase away the spider mites, you should spray your plants as I described above. (sigh) So, it can be hard to do what's "right" for one issue when it contradicts the best solution for a second condition.

If it were my garden, first I'd try to confirm the spider mite diagnosis. Then, I think if it were mites, I'd spray the undersides of the leaves as I described above. Then, I'd wait a couple of days and begin a regular 7-10 day interval spraying program, alternating copper or sulfur with Daconil so the fungal spores wouldn't develop resistance. If the ground isn't mulched, I'd mulch heavily to reduce soil splash too because soil splash carries fungal spores up onto plants.

Because the heavy rains were followed almost immediately by intense heat while soil moisture and humidity years were still very hot, there seem to be oodles of fungal issues in gardens this year.

Larry,

I am sorry to hear you are having such a terrible time with the fungal diseases. The flooding rains this spring have been so hard on our gardens.

Next time, if you think your plants are getting too large, just buy a big bag of a good potting soil and pot them up into larger containers. I have been able to hold plants out of wet, wet ground for a month or so beyond their usual planting time by potting the up into the largest paper or plastic cups I could find. Then, when it was dry enough to plant, I planted them late, but they took off immediately and looked wonderful and were setting fruit within just a couple of weeks of being planted.

Mulching heavily with straw or hay on top of cardboard or newspaper also greatly reduces fungal diseases. I put down at least a 1" thick layer of mulch on top of newspaper or cardboard on the day I plant so the diseases are less likely to splash up out of the soil and onto my plants. As the season goes on, I add more and more mulch. Often, by the time summer's real heat arrives, I have 6" of mulch and that helps conserve moisture, keep weeds down and keep the soil cool. Everything you grow benefits from mulching, but nothing benefits more than tomatoes and related plants (eggplant, potato, pepper).

Going organic is hard and the transition period can be frustrating, but it all works out. I didn't go totally organic in one year, but more gradually over a period of years. I still consider myself mostly organic, but not totally organic. I'll still use Round-up for places that I have hard-to-kill weeds like bermuda grass or poison ivy. I'll sometimes use chemical fire ant killers in the lawn, but nowhere near the veggies or fruit. I don't use Daconil or other chemically-based fungicides, but I would use them if I had an instance where I felt I "had to" in order to save my crop.

Dawn

Yes...definitely spider mites, so I've hit them hard with my hose and will use some insectidal soap that I have...those things are on my potatoes, too!

As for the other tomato...I don't know. The stem is sturdy and intact, but the tomato itself looks most like the late blight photo...nothing on the ripe tomato page resembles it at all.

Sharon,

Spider mites. Yuck! I hate them, but haven't had trouble with them here except the first year or two.

For the late blight, I'd pull and throw away (in the trash, not the compost pile) the bad tomatoes so the disease doesn't spread and spray with a fungicide (organic or chemical). Then, I'd watch closely for symptoms on the leaves and stems. If none show up, then it probably is not late blight since it rarely attacks the fruit alone and not the stems/leaves.

Good luck. I hope the plants outlive the disease and the mites.

Dawn