I had some lower leaves on some of the oldest plants (in-ground since March and now 3-4' tall) start showing both bacterial speck and Early Blight around last Thursday, or at least that is when I noticed it. I stripped off the infected leaves, added more mulch to further reduce soil splash and.......didn't do anything else yet. It wasn't on too terribly many plants yet, and one or two beds had no sign of disease yet. We had a really wet April here, with about 200% our usual April rainfall here at our house, so I have been expecting trouble.

I know I should spray the plants with a fungicide and/or bacteriacide, and I have three or four such products in my shed: GreenCure, Serenade, Copper, Neem and Chlorothalonil....okay, that is five. I may eventually spray them but with rain yesterday, rain in the forecast for tomorrow, and then more rain again later this week, I have been trying to hold off and spray after the worst of the rain has passed. It seems pointless to spray now when we are forecast to get another 2" over the next few days. I feel like if I sprayed the plants now, they'd be protected during the rain, perhaps, but the rain also likely would wash the fungicide off the leaves and then I'd need to spray again. Maybe I'll spray after that 2" of rain falls. I just hate, hate, hate eating produce that has been sprayed with anything.

Everyone here at our house as a bad cold/the flu/bronchitis and feels perfectly miserable, so no one has even set foot in the garden today. I only went out there yesterday to see how much storm damage there was and then I came right back in. It currently is 94 degrees out there and we had a foggy/misty haze for several hours after sunrise this morning so the plants had moisture just dripping off of them. That's likely going to contribute to the appearance of more yucky foliage. I am sure that while I am stuck indoors, a major disease outbreak probably is occurring and spreading through the garden. I'll deal with it after I'm feeling better.

With your very small plants, if they have at least four true leaves, you probably could remove the two worst leaves but I would be sure to leave at least two leaves that are healthy enough to keep conducting photosynthesis so the plants can continue to grow. Or, you can spray them with the fungicide of your choice that is labeled for Early Blight and not remove any leaves until the plants are bigger. I've also done that in the past.

With the rain, heat and humidity, May looks to be a difficult month for the tomato plants, and I think it never is a good sign when Early Blight shows up this early. Often it doesn't show up until near the end of June.

I hope you feel better soon, Dawn! I know how frustrating that can be. Between the weather, vertigo, doctors appointments and needing stronger people for heavy work, I am way behind again. DH moved a bunch of stuff and now I am wondering how I will protect the seedlings. Gotta get those things in the ground! Put the chicks in their outside coop yesterday, but they haven't figured out how to climb the ramp to shelter. Dont know what to do with them, I'll never be able to catch them. I think I will put a bucket on its side in the pen in case they don't figure it out. At least it would give them a little shelter.

Amy, Thanks. I was so happy when our entire family made it through the winter without catching the flu, and then we all got it in May, which just sucks. About the most strenous thing I have done today is open the chicken run doors to let the poultry out to free-range. It is not my style to spend a pretty day curled up on the couch sleeping, but that seems to be all I am capable of at the moment. I'm sure I'll be over the flu in a few days and back out in the garden all day as usual.

I hope you can get a handle on that vertigo. My sister-in-law had it back around Christmas and was quite miserable.

You usually can train chicks to climb a ramp by sprinkling chick starter or hen scratch on the ramp. As they work their way up the ramp eating, a light bulb usually goes off and they figure out that the ramp exists for a purpose. What really helps is to have an older chicken that can show them the ropes, so if you have a neighbor with poultry who might loan you a hen for a day or two, that might help. The chicken would only have to go up and down the ramp a couple of times to show the chicks what to do and how to do it. Young chicks are not the brightest, but I have had them seek shelter from rain by running into buckets turned over on their sides, so they do have some sort of brain in those tiny little heads.

Dawn

Dawn, hope you feel better soon. I hate it when you have all of the out side work to do and can't get off the couch.

stockergal, Thanks. I think I am feeling better today. I still have no energy, but I'm no longer coughing quite so hard. Tim's flu lead to him developing bronchitis, so I've been doing my best to avoid letting that happen to me too, and I think I succeeded. I am very aggravated though, as my energy level is just down to about zero and the daylilies have just begun blooming in the garden. Normally, I'd be out there in the garden all day enjoying them, but this week I have only enjoyed them for a minute or two while opening the garden gate in the morning (so the cats can go in and play) and closing it in the evening (so the bunnies and deer cannot go in!). I think that in another couple of days I might have enough energy to venture back out to work....and when that day comes, it probably will rain. May is one of my favorite months in Oklahoma, except for the severe weather. I know that you understand that more than any other single person here because May brought such disaster and pain to you and your family. I always think of you and the May tornado when May rolls around, and am glad y'all are so far along in the recovery from it now.

Dawn

Thanks Dawn, we are well on the road to recovery. Glad you feel better. Watch that open garden gate. Ha ha

i spent the entire day redoing my back raised beds. I moved three very large Mexican feather grass, added and moved several annuls and perinnals. it should have taken at least two days.

But noooooooI had to do it all in one. I still have one bed almost empty just ran out of stuff to put in it. I guess I'll have to visit the nurseries and buy more, that's really bad huh. Ha ha

i got carried away starting Moom Flower seeds so I have about three times what I can use. I think I'll take some around to the neighbors, I can't just throw them away.

it seems like the lady bugs are in overdrive here at my house. They were every where today.

i am hoping for rain this weekend. We seem to be in a donut hole, we've missed the last several rains and last night we got just enough for me to get up out of bed and close the windows and it quit?? We cut down hay yesterday that should have brought some rain our way. I know, we have to much or not enough. Crazy

You're welcome. I just wanted to be sure you knew that I remain aware of how much work y'all have done to move beyond the tornado and to rebuild. There's always all that news coverage in the beginning after a tornado strikes, but I think it is easy for non-affected persons to forget that the rebuilding and recovery takes years.

How dreadful that you will have to go to the nurseries and buy plants. That is a terrible shame. (grin) I hope you have a lot of fun, and if you are like me, you'll buy about 3 (or six) more plants than you have room to plant.

Folks have been cutting and baling here in between rain storms, trying to get ahead or at least stay caught up. It is hard, as you know, when rain falls every week. And, it is impossible for the folks whose bottom lands have flooded twice already this year, costing them the hay they optimistically planted last fall after last year's flooding hit them 4 or more times. Sometimes you can't win for losing. When we're dry we hope for rain, but then when rain comes in that famous quantity of too much at once, it can be just as damaging as not getting enough rain. I hope y'all get out of the doughnut hole and get some rain, but not until you're through baling hay.

We had a really, really wet April so I have been glad that most of the recent storms have missed us. The 7-day QPF scared me by forecasting almost 3" of rain for this week, but we only got 1.1" so far, so I feel relieved about that. Of course, if the rain starts missing us too much, I won't like that either. There's a lot of rain in the forecast for the next week (though, thankfully, not fo today) and I hope the rain falls where it is needed/wanted and doesn't fall where there's already been too much. That seems like an awful lot to hope for, doesn't it?

I love, love, love moonflowers. You can never have too many! Nothing says "beautiful summer night" like the moonflowers unfurling their blossoms. I rush outside after supper in the evenings just to watch it happen, and it never gets old.