Larry,
I can't comment on Jerry's remedies for blight since I haven't used any of them. There is a man who I respect on another board who says spraying with hydrogen peroxide works for blight, mildews and several other diseases. I haven't tried that yet either but thinking about it.
I use molasses a lot. You can use any molasses. What they sell at the grocery store of what you buy at a feed store. And for corm meal I know several who use the meal from the grocery store. i would buy mine from the feed store as it should be a lot cheaper. Jay

Jay - Hydrogen Peroxide like it comes out of the bottle or diluted? I have never heard that one.

Soonergrandmom:
He says as long as you use the 3.2% in the brown bottle you can use whatever strength you want up to full. Some on that forum are using 1 cup to a gallon of water. Like I said I haven't tried it but thinking about it. Says it is good on powdery and downy mildew also. Jay

Larry,

This is the worst year for tomato foliage diseases in a long time, I think, and of course it was made worse by the constant spring rain and heavy dew.

I assume you are seeing common foliar issues like septoria leaf spot, bacterial speck, bacterial spot, Early Blight or Alternaria canker, and certainly hope you're not seeing the more serious wilt diseases.

I have been organic (or, at least, 98% organic) for about 20 years, but used chemicals prior to that, and to be 100% honest, I don't think there is anything organic that works nearly as well as alternating the spraying of copper and chlorathalonil. No matter what you use, it works best if started from Day One when the plants to into the ground. Starting spraying now may slow down the diseases but is unlikely to save the plants. However, if it slows down the diseases and gives you another month or two of production, that would be good in terms of giving you all that fruit.

In terms of organic remedies, you can use any of the proposed rememdies....baking soda, milk, hydrogen pyroxide, molasses, corn meal, liquid seaweed, etc., but none of them will work better than the chemicals, and it pains me to say that. The truth, though, is the truth, and that's the way I see it, based on many years of organic gardening.

I always start seeds for new fall tomato plants around June first and set them out approximately mid-July. I don't necessarily "need" new plants every year, but in general between the heat and the insects and the foliar diseases, most years I am quite relieved when I'm able to yank out the older declining plants and replace them with fresh young healthy plants at mid-summer. The fall tomato plants I transplant in July generally make pretty good growth. They are heavily mulched and watered only with soaker hoses, and not much rain falls here in July/August here, which helps. As soon as the temperatures start cooling, which is in late August some years and in early to late September in other years, the fall tomatoes begin to bloom and set fruit. Since our first killing freeze in autumn is usually in November, I get quite a lot of fruit from the fall tomatoes most years. This is especially true if I cover them up well and get them past the first frost....because often, after that, we have 4-6 weeks of Indian Summer and they produce like mad. I often still have garden-fresh tomatoes for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Sometimes you can take cuttings from the spring-planted tomatoes and root those cuttings and start your fall tomato plants that way. However, taking cuttings from sick plants is risky. Still, if you sprayed the plants and then took cuttings, you might get healthy new replacement plants out of them.

As much as I hate the recurring long-term droughts we have here about every other summer, one good thing about a very dry spring and summer is that foliar diseases are almost nonexistent in a drought year if you don't get water on the foliage when you irrigate and if you mulch.

Whatever you choose to do, I hope you can slow down and control the blight enough that you're able to harvest good veggies. Don't drive yourself nuts trying to make the blight "go away" though, because that simply isn't possible.

Dawn

Thanks Guy's,

Dawn, from the pictures I have looked at, I have Early Blight, and Septoria. I have some fruit with a little damage, but I have had two hail storms and feel at least some of the damage is from the hail. I will go out and try repair some of the damage from wind, rain and light hail from Sat. night.

Jay, I will see if the feed store in Greenwood has molasses today, if not I will have to wait till I go to Ft. Smith or Poteau.

I have copper and daconil, which I have used one time each now. Both are at least a year or two old now because I have been trying to go chemical free for a few years.
I think I picked the wrong year to go "Cold Turkey".

Thanks again, Larry

Larry,

I agree that this has been a very difficult year to go cold turkey in converting to organics.

Even with a lot of time devoted to soil improvement and even when carefully using all the techniques said to reduce foliar disease, my plants still get it. You simply can't grow tomato plants outdoors in "sterile" soil, water and wind since they don't exist "out there", so the diseases are always present, just waiting to attack.

Most years I am just happy if I can keep my tomato plants producing into late July or early August. In a really good year, I am able to keep at least some of the spring tomatoes producing until the fall tomatoes start producing.

My first fall tomato plants are going into the ground this evening shortly before sunset, and I will spray them with Daconil even before I put them into the ground. It will be only the second time I have sprayed Daconil, I believe, since moving here in 1999. The previous time I only sprayed the plants at planting time to give them a couple of weeks of 'protection' as they were getting established. Since converting to organics, I have not regularly sprayed with Daconil, but I am seriously considering doing it next year from Day One.....especially since climate forecasters believe a rainy El Nino pattern may return to the U.S. this winter. (Gotta plan ahead!)

The tomatoes I have in containers in a location about 100' or so from the main veggie garden have very little disease issues compared to the plants in the ground. Before next year rolls around, I hope to round up a few more large containers and plant even more in containers and fewer in the ground. The foliar diseases are so bad this year that I am tempted to go completely to container-growing and use the garden for other crops, especially for corn for the raccoons to eat. Ha ha.

Dawn

Dawn,

I guess I am a spoiled cry-baby. I have never planted a fall tomato, and have lost very few plants. My spring plants nearly always produce til frost. They look a little ragged and the fruit is not nearly as large, plus the skin gets a little tuff.

I stake with "T" post and use 1/2" rebar for trellis. My "T" post have a 5" pce. 1/2" pipe welded or tied to the top of them so I can take the trellis height up to about 84", which is about as high as I can reach, and still tie something to it. I assemble and dis-assemble each year so I can rework my garden. I put in a lot of WORK and I am not happy with failure.

After reading Jay's post I think I need to start spraying my post and rebar, plus cutting off all the old twine that has been on there for years. I have never thought of that.

I would plant fall plants if I could find them. The ones I have found dont look much better than mine.

Well I should guit whining, nobody wins them all, and I still enjoy getting out there slinging sweat everywhere.

I really like this Forum, you guys are a lot of help, thanks, Larry

Larry, I think spraying the posts and rebar wouldn't hurt and probably would help as would getting rid of the old twine.

I found a couple of decent fall tomatoes this weekend at a Home Depot and a Wal-Mart. They are from Bonnie Plants and look healthy, but I will spray them with Daconil before I plant them because of the late blight issues currently occurring in the northeast and parts of the southeast, which some people believe has been spread by Bonnie Plants. (Jay may know if the Bonnie Plants association is an "assumption" or a proven "fact", but I am not sure which it is.) The plants aren't anything special, but are some of my favorite hybrids that I didn't plant this year because I was trying new ones like Scarlet Red, Red Defender, Mountain Fresh Plus, etc. I think I got a Big Beef, Beefmaster, Better Boy and Sweet Million since I wasn't raising any of those 4 varieties from seed and I've missed the first three. (I do have two Sweet Millions in my spring garden.)

The plants I looked at did not all look good, but I was able to pick through and find some fairly healthy looking ones. When I got home, I watered them well and fed them some diluted fish emulsion, and removed some yellowing lower leaves. I did check the backs of the leaves carefully for red spider mites before I bought them because mites are common on tomato plants at big box stores this time of year and I won't buy a plant if it is mite infested.

I also saw some of the plants bred to produce in heat like Solar Set and Heat Wave II, but I didn't buy any of them since their flavor is lacking. (Just because they can breed a plant to set fruit in hot weather doesn't mean they can breed the plants to set a fruit that tastes like a tomato.)

I love this forum too. We all learn from and encourage one another.

Dawn

Larry,
In gardening there is always lots of unknowns and speculation, what ifs and next years. What I try to do is eliminate as many possibilities for trouble as I can. Somethings you can't prevent. Mother nature in the end has more control than many want to admit. Anything I do I believe in studying, researching and doing my best but still enjoy it.
Spraying your cages, posts ect isn't mandatory but can't hurt. I can do it at a time when I'm not so busy. And many of the professionals feel it is a good practice. From my many years of experience as a gardener I've found it is like most other things. Good practices leads to more consistent results but won't guarantee perfection every year.
I had never had disease problems till I started getting seeds from so many sources. I'm not pointing any fingers as I've been very appreciative of every seed I've received. But after the previous two years it became obvious I was getting soil borne diseases somewhere and I mulch heavily. Many I never had before or to the extent I do now. And many of my coworkers haven't experienced what I have. The only difference is where they got their plants and seeds. I think the year for many of you is the problem this year. And even close to me where they have had rain. That hasn't been one for me. I think I do have some disease residual in the soil now. And with as many as I grow I don't rotate like I probably should. I hope to get back to where I don't have to spray. But feel I may have to for another few years to keep the diseases either down or away. And maybe in time I can get my soil clean again. Overall thought I don't have the problems many do elsewhere.

Dawn: About Bonnies Plants. What I've read it there has been no diseased plants found in their greenhouses. But many in the big box stores. They are saying they feel they might of got the disease through the air after they were shipped. I know a few around that got the disease said when they went to the big box stores this weekend they saw lots of diseased plants still on the shelves. And I thought they had pulled all of them. JohnCT said on another forum where I started a thread he had one that had it. Think he said yesterday a couple more showing signs. They are saying you can remove the infected plants immediately and start spraying and prevent it on most of the others. Hopefully that is correct.
I've really enjoyed my short time here. Everyone has put up with my long posts.

Jay, Dawn, and All,
You guys please keep up the long post. The long post are the ones with detail in them, without detail we cant learn much. Thanks, Larry

Jay,

I agree with everything you said about gardening and doing "all the right stuff" and then, still, in the end having to acknowledge that Mother Nature is in control of the growing conditions much more than we are.

I believe in studying and researching and trying new techniques too. Still, gardening has to be fun and enjoyable and sometimes I have to remind myself to enjoy the process and be happy enough with the results no matter what they are.

One of the reasons that I have stayed away from tomato seed exchanges in the past is because I worried about seedborne diseases coming in with the seeds. Perhaps the Chlorox soak can prevent that. Once you get diseases in your soil, it is hard to correct that, and I find that very frustrating.

I don't rotate either, and I ought to. However, I grow tomatoes in virtually every bed in my garden either in spring or fall, so that's impossible. Amending rock-hard, slow-draining red clay is so costly and so time-consuming that it would require a major effort to make another garden plot in another location and then rotate the tomatoes back and forth from one garden to the other.

Some days when I look at Raybo's or Bingster's earthtainer garden photos, I tell myself that they are doing it the right way. Still, at heart I am just an old dirt gardener like my Daddy and my grandfather before me, and there is something about gardening exclusively in self-watering containers that seems un-natural or wrong to me. Maybe it is just that I like to feel the soil between my fingers and toes.

With regard to Bonnie's Plants, you've heard what I've heard then. I do find it impossible to believe the disease is not originating in their greenhouses, though, or perhaps from some of their seed suppliers. It just seems like they are the "golden thread" that connects the diseased plants all over the affected portion of the country.

I know I can alternately spray copper and Daconil on a 7-10 day schedule in my garden (because I used to do it in my pre-organic days) and suppress many diseases in my garden. I'm not saying they aren't there....but they are suppressed to the point that you almost don't see them. So, I suspect BP's rigorous spray schedule in their greenhouses may be suppressing the late blight so it is undetectable until the plants have left the greenhouse and have missed at least one spraying, since stores do not spray. And, I am not saying they know the late blight is being carried by their plants and are covering that up or denying it, but rather that their practices work and what happens after the plants leave them is beyond their control. It would be a terrible tragedy and a huge disservice to BP for them to be blamed if they are not at fault.

And I am very skeptical you can keep late blight from spreading once it is present. I guess we'll know because JohnCT and others certainly will say so if it spreads even after they've removed the infected plants. I suspect it perhaps spreads and is on other plants (though not yet visible) by the time they see symptoms on the first plant. I hope I am wrong--and it is just a gut feeling.

There has not been as much discussion of the late blight as I'd expected on the Tomato Forum, but then maybe the poor northeastern gardeners cannot even get out of their houses and out to the gardens to look at their plants since it just won't stop raining there. They are having an awful year and I feel for them.

I enjoy all your posts.....long, short and in-between, so keep it up! : )

Larry,

You shouldn't encourage me to write "more"! (smile) I feel like I'm always too wordy and too detailed as it is.

Dawn