Well maybe they are her worms. Are all they plants you gave away to other people affected to?

thank you phj, i was trying to tell her that in an email.

jojo, i KNEW you'd run over here and take responsibility for this! cut it out! now! (all of the previous said with a large dose of love, mind you)

i've been reading up on it, and i probably already have them in my soil. good golly woman, you live less than a mile away! if they're in your soil, why couldn't they already be in mine? they were not in the roots of a tomato i pulled that was 2 feet away. i'm not freaking over this, but i did need to verify what i was looking at. it wasn't horrible galling, and now i can do something about it.

stop this. now. (or i'll bring over"just dance 2" and make you play it until you beg me to stop....and then i'll make you play for another 1/2 hour)

all my love,

dodes

Jo,

I don't think they could have traveled from your soil to the styrofoam cups unless you flooded a bed with irrigation water AND the water ran over to the cookie sheet AND the water found its way up into the cups AND so on and so forth. So, please stop blaming yourself and relax, OK?

I agree with PHJ and Dodie that it is likely she already had nematodes in her soil too. Root knot nematodes are incredibly common in southern parts of the country that have soil with a high sand content. In parts of Florida the RKN's are so bad that you have to raise tomatoes in containers elevated well above the ground so that the RKNs cannot travel via rainwater up throught the pots' drainage holes. Most photos I've seen from Florida posted by people who are fighting nematodes show their pots raised at least a foot above the ground and sitting on stone or cinder block walls, decks, etc.

Y'all know, too, that the nematode-resistant varieties of toms can sometimes outlast the RKNs, right? So that explains why you'll often see them hit some plants but not all plants. Some plants resist or tolerate them well and others don't.

Dodie, you're a real sweetheart and Jo's so lucky to have you for a friend!

Dawn

i know, i tell her that all the time :) bwahahahaha!!

Okay, I am very glad I didn't give one of my best friends worms. Whew.

They are a nightmare for me and I felt so terrible when I heard she might have some now too.

I am VERY lucky to have her. :)

Jo

Jo,
Sometimes we never know where they came from. Last year I had one plant with them and that was the first time I've ever seen RKN on any of my plants roots. It was a plant I had bought from a commercial source. Another from the same source had small galls on it's roots and none on any of the other 100 plus plants I pulled last summer and fall. Will never know for sure where they came from. The plant I planted back in that hole didn't look bad when I pulled it last fall after frost killed it. I turned my ground over and left it bare for most of the winter. The extension service says if you do that we get cold enough it should kill them. If you leave the ground covered with deep mulch then they say it can survive. I wouldn't let it bother me if I was you. I really doubt that they came from your plants from the way you handled them. And even if they would of your intentions were good. Remember they are just another gardening obstacle. If I let every obstacle upset me I wouldn't be a very happy gardener. Personally I control what I can and don't get upset about the rest. Jay