Sharon,

Here is another option. Our gardens are very large. We have never grown tomatoes in two of them. You are welcome to plant a few dozen tomato plants in one of our gardens.

We are located in and around Guthrie.

Johnny

Vision-Farms.org

I've read this post three times. It's heartbreaking! I'm so sorry you're dealing with this crud!
bon

I pulled a bunch of tomato plants out of a bed yesterday, and I have this lovely layer of brown leaves in there. I couldn't bring myself to rake them out (and there are still things growing in there) but I sure thought about this. Oddly I have heard of people who grew in the same place for years without problems. DH did that in a little bed when we first moved here. Of course we may have been planting hybrids. I won't plant tomatoes in there next year.

I wonder if you grew herbs that are supposed to be anti fungal if it would help? Pack a bed with chamomile, oregano, cumin, thyme, garlic and till them in afterwards? Easier than replacing the dirt. Also, worm castings. Some people actually spray plants with worm casting tea. Agricultural corn meal (what is that stuff called?) That they use to kill weeds in spring, someone claims that is anti fungal. Also, some claim the more microbes, the better disease resistance. I haven't tried any of these but Garden recipes has several things for boosting plants imunities. Some of this stuff is "out there" by conventional standards, but I don't think any would be harmful.

Or you could just grow beds and beds of zuchetta and hand them out to your neighbors :)

Some herbs get fusarium wilt or fusarium crown rot, so I'm not convinced they would help, although it is a different type of fusarium from the one that targets tomatoes and other nightshades. Also, fusarium can survive in soil for up to 10 years, so planting herbs in there for a season likely wouldn't hurt the fusarium as it can just sort of go dormant and hang in there for years and years and wait for the herbs to go away. A lot of herbs' antivirals are not existing in the soil---they are in plant parts and aren't really released unless you extract them from the herb. For example, with chamomile, you can make chamomile tea and use it as a soil drench to combat damping off (which is a collection of diseases), but I don't believe the same benefit comes from just having chamomile growing in the ground. Also, fusarium sometimes survives on weed roots and, in the case of some herbs, it might just survive on the roots waiting for a susceptible plant to show up. I know fusarium can survive on mint although it doesn't hurt the mint----mint is just a symptomless harborer of fusarium.

Fusarium wilt is not just a disease that targets a few plants---there are thosands of species of Fusarium that target different plants and it can be very long lived in soil no matter what you do. One kind of fusarium targets nightshades, another targets melons, another targets basil, etc. Fumigants aren't available to home gardeners (I am not even sure how widely they are available to commercial growers any more) and I don't know how effective they are or aren't.

Because Fusarium has existed for decades, tomato breeders have become very skilled at breeding tolerance (sometimes referred to as resistance) into new varieties, and almost all new hybrid varieties are tolerant to Race 1, most are tolerant to Race 2, and a lot of the newest hybrids are tolerant to Race 3. A lot of the BNH varieties, like BHN 602 or whatever, are tolerant to all three races of fusarium. There likely are heirlooms that have some tolerance of fusarium wilt, but sine no one has a patent on old heirlooms, no one is willing to spend the money for the testing to establish fusarium tolerance and that's why you don't see heirlooms labeled for tolerances in the same way you see hybrids labeled. The reason tomato breeders have had to spend so much time, money and effort breeding tolerance into the plants is because there's not a better solution (and they've tried for decades to find one).

Sharon, If you see this, do you have sandy soil? Often, when folks have a very persistent fusarium issue, it exists in concert with root knot nematodes. The RKNs do the initial damage that weakens the plant and then the fusarium moves in and targets the weakened plant (and then the spider mites move in and target the declining, sick plant). It might be something is keeping the plants weaker to begin with and then they cannot resist the fusarium attack.

In some parts of the country, diseases like fusarium and/or verticillium are so persistent in the soil that you cannot avoid them no matter what you do. Many gardeners in areas like that (including tomato expert Craig LeHoullier in NC) switch to growing only in containers so that their plants have a fighting chance.

Plant rotation helps, but I break all the rules and grow tomato plants (and their relatives) all over my garden every year without doing anything that resembles proper rotation. It is the only way I can grow as many potatoes, tomatoes and peppers as I wish each year. If I had to rotate properly, I'd never be able to plant as many plants as I want because I'd have to set aside beds for a 4-year rotation and it would just about kill me. I do add tons of organic matter and I think that helps my plants. I won't say I've never had fusarium wilt, because I think I had it once or twice, but only on a plant or two (out of 100 to 600) in any given year. I expected fusarium wilt to be more of an issue here than it actually is since I have dense, slowly-draining clay, but the many years of amending it and building raised beds seem to have paid off. Plus, we probably didn't have existing fusarium in our soil when we bought this place, and that makes a difference. Sometimes you just get unlucky and buy a place that already has fusarium in the soil and, if that is the case, it is really hard to get rid of, though solarization works moderately well. Everything that hits my garden tends to hit it once or twice and never again, except for the common fungal and bacterial diseases like early blight, bacterial speck, bacterial spot, etc. that are found in the soil as well as being airborne and windborne. You cannot do anything to wipe them out, so I just deal with those things the best I can. Fusarium is harder to slow down or stop because by the time you see symptoms, the plant is infected and will die. That's why I suggested something like MycoStop. (There are other brands with other names.) It is used as a preventive.

Dawn

Thank you, thank you for all of the suggestions. I have just about decided to take a year to grow a few resistant plants in containers (and I have grown the "Mountain" series before - they were good plants as I recall) while at the same time solarizing the beds. I have not heard of MycoStop, so I'll look into that as well as getting my soil tested again.

My soil is not sandy and no nematodes. I've been on the lookout for them because my dad's garden seems to be overrun with them.

Zuchetta.....yeahhhh....I'll leave that up to YOU, Lisa! :-D

Johnny...thank you for the offer, but that's a bit of a drive...I need my "therapy" a little bit closer! I may come see you to help you harvest potatoes, though :-D

Looks like Spring Fling will be for food and fun only...some year I'll get back to some tasty heirloom tomatoes - I'm sure this is confirmation that (down the road a bit) I need to move to a more tomato-friendly environment, haha.

Oh....and BTW, I have one (fall crop) spaghetti squash that I'm coddling and protecting from potential frost....I have high hopes because it's almost "there"! Maybe I should just grow tons and tons of those next year....I think seeing my enemy (squash bugs) might be easier!

Sharon

Sharon,

We will appreciate the help with our potato project.

Johnny