I think you may be overly concerned about water on tomato leaves in Northern California, where the summers tend to be dry. Aphids can be controlled with a water spray with some soap or detergent, say a teaspoon mixed into a quart of water, or isopropyl alcohol and water 1:2, with a few drops of liquid soap as a surfactant.
Gary

Try growing a large patch of nasturtiums, they're an excellent trap crop for aphids.

Lori,

I'll chime in on this since we've got the same climate. Yes, people grow tomatoes where it rains! That's what I ask too. LOL I'm originally from Iowa and it rains all summer. And WOW, the tomatoes we grew when I was a kid got me hooked for life. Here in the Northbay we don't have the high humidity that keep the leaves wet so I don't worry about getting them wet in the mornings at all...ever. Plenty of gardners in humid climates still blast off the bugs and do foliar fertilizing. In my opinion, it's much better to wet the leaves and take a chance on powdery mildew, etc, than to let disease spreading bugs suck the life out of your plants.

Congrats on being able to blast off the aphids and keep them away. I had great control earlier in the season with syrphids and ladybugs. I even "farmed" them, moving them to plants that needed more help. But now they're gone, pupating I hope, and I have aphids, psyillds, leafminers, and saw some worm frass on a leaf today.
I'm also a fan of Love Apple Farms and grow my tomatoes in pots per Cynthia's instructions. I had Azatrol on hand in case we got the dreaded Tomato Russet Mites this year and ended up spraying this morning to get the insects under control. I'm also spraying Serenade disease control weekly because of this wierd weather.. an inch of rain in late June followed by a heat wave! Nothing will surprise me this summer!
I feel comfortable using any product that LAF recommends. I followed her advice last year and when everyone else was complaining about having no tomatoes I had many days with 100-200 beautiful ripe tomatoes sitting on my kitchen counter...from 8 tomato plants growing in pots!

BTW, she does caution, as does everyone, not to splash wet soil on the leaves. I do try to avoid that but your soil from Wheeler should not have any disease build up. Yep, water and dirt can be very bad for tomatoes. :)

Carla in Petaluma

Thank you everyone for chiming in. And Carla, thanks much for the opinion and advice. Wow, 200 tomatoes from 8 plants? And in our Petaluma/Rohnert Park fog belt. I'm impressed. I've been following LAF but I confess, I don't pay as much attention to the blog as I could. I appreciate the recommendation. I'm definitely going to have to look at them more closely, as I'd love to get those kind of results!

Lori,
I probably had about 600 tomatoes from the 8 plants. Oh, that doesn't include the sungolds that were "candy snacks". I dropped tomatoes like people drop zucchini..at my dentist in SF, at the deli down the street, at my neighbors, employees, etc. I made and froze sauce and still have about 75 frozen tomatoes that I can use. Not every tomato that grew was perfect. But so many were. I was dancing around like Tom Hanks in Castaway. "Look what I've created! I have made tomatoes!" Most were just awesome.

LAF has transitioned into a full time corporate business and the website is certainly not as entertaining or as informative as it used to be. But she still trys to help anyone with their tomatoes by email and I'll always appreciate the advice that she's posted freely. She's got investor's now and I sincerely hope that she's ended up where she wants to be. I would love to take one of the classes down there.

Wishing you a bountiful harvest,

Carla

I accidentally lied. I had 9 plants plus the sungold.
2 Black Krim...not impressed like some folks but Huge yield
1 Black from Tula ditto
1 Red Zebra....never again
1 Brandywine Great but small yield
1 Abe lincoln great and great yield
1 Cosmonaut Volkov WOW WOW WOW Huge yield Huge fruit Flavor A+++
1 Stupice Very good yield and flavor
1 San Marzano good yield and flavor but lost a lot to BER

I am printing out that list of tomatoes. Thank you! I grew the San Marzano last year and got tons of tomatoes. That and the brandywine results were similar to yours. Haven't tried any of the others but am now curious to try some of these you had good luck with.

Seems to have gotten a bit off topic, but that's what
happens a lot.

I'm in SoCal and have no hesitation on getting the plant
leaves wet. It's such low humidity that the leaves dry
before any fungus gets a foothold.

Be sure you have a nice thick mulch down. That cuts
down (or hopefully eliminates) the amount of dirt that
can splash up on the plants.

One commercial grower I talked to years ago (Steve Goto)
said that washing down the plants is actually a good thing
if you can get away with it. It washes the funal spores
off the plants

Thanks, qaguy! I grew up with lots of house plants (product of the 70's, macrame hangers and all, heh), where misting over and/or hosing down plants were pretty much a requirement. It's been a difficult concept for me in vegetable gardening to control the urge to shower them all in a good bath. IMO they really do seem healthier and more pest-free after a washing, but I've feared growing rust and powdery mildew. I seriously think I might just stop all the worrying and do what comes instinctively.