brown spots...

I would agree that you planted far too early - especially without any protection on them - and all the symptoms in the first pic can be laid off on stresses caused by that exposure. If the weather cooperates it should recover with no problems. Normally I'd recommend giving it a well diluted feeding but it has enough stress right now without adding to it.

The plant in the second pic "could" be just wind and sun damage along with the other stresses but I can't tell for sure from the picture, can't rule out Early Blight, on it. Monitor it closely and replace it if the symptoms show up on its new growth.

As to the peppers - far too soon for them to be out IMO. They require much warmer air and soil temps than tomatoes do. Peppers are not normally planted until a good 2-3 weeks after tomatoes.

Can I ask how deep the bed is and why the tomato plants appear to be planted so shallow? Why they have all that exposed stem above ground? I'd suggest mounding lots of soil up all around the base of those plants to bury as much of that bare stem as possible.

Dave

Cut the lower branches, use some mulch. Many diseases come from rain splashing on the leaves. To keep the seedlings warmer, I suggest using some floating row cover.

Thanks for the help guys...this is my first real garden. I've just done herbs and peppers in containers

The bed is 8 inches deep. We bought the tomato plants when they were about 6 in. tall and planted them at the same depth as they were in the flat. How deep should they be planted?

I'll trim the lowers and mound up the stems. It's raining again today :(

I'm new to gardening too. The last time I planted tomatoes, they got a horrible case of early blight. At the time I had no idea what it was, I just thought they "weren't doing well." I made the mistake of planting them in a shallow swimming pool and planting them upright, giving the roots very little room to grow. I also planted too early.

Anyway, this is my second attempt at growing tomatoes in this region. I am using a canopy to regulate exposure to rain and minimize leaf wetness, and also a cloche thingy because it's cold right now. I also read that you can use bottles filled with warm water to keep the tomato warm underneath the cloche, so I'm trying that. I only planted mine a couple of days ago. I planted it horizontally this time, since it's in a raised bed on the patio. (It's a bigger, deeper bed this time.)

I hope your tomatoes do well! I haven't had any luck with peppers--I tried them here in Western Washington, and they both died. =(

Like OH Fem said, I would never use Sevin as a preventative. Maybe if you told us the problem you are treating we could suggest something less harsh.

Whether Sevin is OK, only you can decide, and that is based on your tolerance for exposure to it, everyone has different levels of comfort and there are those that promote "natural" ideas and those that brush off that the risk means anything.

Officially the wait time between application and consumption for Sevin on tomatoes is minimum 3 days and washing well. I personally would wait over a week, and since you aren't applying it often, the longer the better ... and wash well. If there are no other tomatoes now and the flowering is just starting you have over a month. If pollinators visit your tomato flowers it can kill them, but the tomatoes will probably self-pollinate anyways without the insects. Other flowers that depend on the pollinators may not be so lucky. Such is the case with many pesticides, they have side efects on other things.

PC

I would try to cover them too if it rains too much. It doesn't have to be anything fancy just so it keeps most of the rain off.

Jeff,

Rule of gardening is NOT TO use pesticide UNLESS you have identified the pest. Then and only then you would go ahead and deal with it.
But you can/should spray with fungicide as preventive measure from very early on, on schedule.

Sey

Only proactively use pesticide for pest you know are there. I use one on my lawn for fire ants due to the fact that they are a constant problem here. I do not like to be standing somewhere with fire ants crawling on me. It seems they will not start biting until there are hundreds of them all over you first.

Tomatoes and peppers are doing well tomatoe plants are getting flowers I was wandering has anyone raised any early girl tomatoes plants I got a few but my regular tomatoes are doing a little better I think will the early girls do better eventually?

Early Girl was very dependable for me for the early-maturity last fall. Out of ten varieties, on balance it resulted in more tomatoes faster than the other varieties which were mostly OPs. One or two Cherokee Purple fruits were early too (actually beating Early Girl), but that was just from the first cluster and then it was a hike till the next ones. Supersweet 100 was earlier but just with a few cherry tomatoes so Early girl took care of most of my early sandwiches. You need to say what your regular tomato variety(-ies) is(are) and if you can post a picture everyone can look for any red flags.

PC

Thanx that's good to know I feel better

ONE MORE POINT:

You mentioned " The bed is 8 inches deep." .
There you have a problem " 8" in NOT simply enough UNLESS you have good soil underneath, beyond that. If not I would pile up more soil at list around the plant (~ 2 - 3ft diameter circle) , making a mound and bring the soil depth to about 12" or more. Then as Daniel suggested, go ahead and mulch. This shoul give the the plants to grow more roots, keep the soil moist longer, prevent BER ..etc.

Sey

I don't understand bringing up these old posts and offering advice. The OP is most likely not online anymore (as evidencd by no response) . a lot of old posts are being brought up, what is the purpose of this?

Jennie

You are right, Jennie. I did not pay attention to the date. But anything/everything said and written can be useful to other readers too , as these issues are not "Person Specifics".

Sey

It is a little weird to hear someone ask one year later..."why did you use sevin?" haha

What's weird to me is that my question about sevin was made in response to a very recent comment from someone who said he/she had sprinkled sevin powder on their plants. That comment is gone now, so it looks like I asked an irrelevant question out of the blue and two years later. I've had a few strange experiences with trying to post here lately, but this takes the cake. Am I the only one who remembers the sevin sprinkler?

Ohiofem, there was a post about someone using sevin recently. Seysonn, PC and centexan responded to it also. That's what threw me when rereading this thread, it was gone.

I can understand sometimes regretting what you wrote and wanting to delete a post after you've made it, but if everyone can do that, old discussions will become meaningless. On the old GW, you could edit your post but you couldn't delete it completely.

In my opinion 8" soil depth is enough, but you have to plant the tomato sideway so it have more room to develop root, so you need horizontal space.

In my opinion, 8'' MIGHT be enough if planted HORIZONTALLY.

If planted vertically, imo, 12'' is not enough. 18'' is ok, while 24'' is the best.

I've had some flowers on my tomatoes plants for a couple weeks and don't know what happens next how do the tomatoes form and I also want to say sorry for deleting a comment when I sprinkled sevin dust on them I'm new and I know to leave it so anyone interested can see and the plants are looking good it didnt burn them or hurt them and it helped keep grasshoppers Beatles off but a black ant or two still around I just rather use natural alternative I would use it again but I'm gonna try 2table spoon of hot sauce a drop of dish detergent and water thanks for the advice

Jeff: I didn't mean to criticize you for deleting the post, I meant to complain about how the Houz version of the site is different from the old Garden Web. In answer to your question about what happens next, it takes about 6-8 weeks from the time a flower forms until it becomes a ripe fruit under ideal garden conditions. It's not unusual for the first flowers that form to fall off without forming fruits. Early girls can ripen a little sooner than beefsteak type tomatoes.

Also, I would encourage you to stop worrying about a few bugs. Ants and grasshoppers won't hurt your plants, but too much hot sauce or dish liquid might hurt them. As someone said earlier, you're more likely to have problems with diseases than insects, and home made insecticides can make your plants more likely to get diseases by damaging the leaves.

K thanx so much I'll sit back and keep watering and give them time I'm wanting to plow off a spot to plant some okra cucomber maybe a couple rows of corn nothing real big but have I waited too long or is it still early I'd like to get a couple of Pickens off the okra n cucumber I think I still got timeon them but I don't have any idea about the corn when would be the latest I could put them out the weather is good here till late September we get first frost about first or second week of october