Provide good air circulation around the plants, mulch, and spray with a fungicide when you first notice signs of a disease. Late blight is an airborne disease so you may always get it no matter what you do.

Rodney

I think most fungicides are preventatives. Once you see the blight, it's too late.

Some more ways to reduce chances of disease:

- Plant them in a different bed this year, and ideally allow 3-4 years before planting tomatoes in that spot again. Difficult, I know, if space is limited.

- Plant resistant varieties, if possible. (Look up info on what tomato diseases are prevalent in your area)

- water from below (e.g. soaker hose) to reduce splashing soil onto leaves

I had the same trouble last year too. I ordered plants from California and they just did awful here in Chicago. I should have known that wouldn’t work well coming from a warmer climate to cold Chicago. The plants never took off growing like my plants normally do. The plants developed blight and just didn’t produce many fruits. The year before I planted my own seed grown plants and they did great. We live and learn in the garden for sure. I will do my own plants year and be more on top of things. Preventative maintenance for me this year. I won’t plant the bed for a few years if the plants get too diseased or stressed.

What the OP describes --yellow leaves--is not Late Blight. Sounds like early blight or something similar to me.

And, Patti, since tomatoes are started from seed, where they were sown is irrelevant, though the specific variety may not have been best for your location.

Agree that it doesn't sound like late blight.

Just to clarify, the plants were store bought, and they did well until they began to fruit, then the leaves began to yellow and it was all downhill from there. I didnt get a single fruit.

what did you do about feeding the plants? irrigation? insects?

Why in the world would one ever order tomato plants from CA if they lived in Chicago?? It is not like they are some sort of rarity - every place that sells plants will offer starts for sale in season....even grocery stores sell them!! Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe's and any plant nursery will have them for sale. Also easily found at plant sales and farmer's markets

If you want a type that is less common, you can find seeds pretty easily as well. I just do not understand the logic behind shipping something like tomato plants across country...........

@gardengal48 - what are you talking about?

gardengal. I was not thinking clearly for sure. I was late getting them in and wanted to try a few different heirlooms. They sold large starter plants. I had a wedding last summer and was busy. I didn’t want to be without summer tomatoes. My tomatoes ended up just awful. The plants were like the OP said theirs were. I don’t know what we had but I would like to avoid that. I have my seeds to start this year. My bed is always given a refreshing of compost when I pull the plants. In spring I use container mix and Pro Mix in a low does on the plants Each week. I don’t know if what I had was soil born or plant. Should I spray the bed with something in spring to avoid it again? An application of something for blight or fungus? Thanks in advance. Chaznsc94 and I would like nice healthy plants that fruit in abundance this year.

chaznsc94, I was remarking on this previous comment: "I ordered plants from California and they just did awful here in Chicago."

Patti, I don't know what to tell you :-) We don't know what your issues were precisely so cannot make any specific recommendations to avoid. I live in a rather unforgiving tomato growing climate (short and very cool growing season) but I am able to successfully grow tomatoes in containers each year without any disease issues.

Both early and late blight spores can remain in soils (late blight is an oomycete/water mold and lives in soils) so strongly suggest not replanting in the same location if you suspect that was the issue. And both are highly influenced by moisture and mild temperatures.

I am in Western PA and have also had a terrible time dealing with blight. I can offer a few suggestions.

* Changing beds won't help because the spores are distributed via wind. They can come from your neighbor's yard, or a garden a mile away. It is a community problem and would take a community-wide solution to eliminate. In short, you have to live with the spores being a fact of life.

* Stake your tomatoes and provide good air circulation. Don't put them too close to each other. Prune branches on indeterminate varieties - limit them to three main stalks and pinch out the rest.

* Use a copper fungicide weekly from mid-June on.

* Remove any yellowing or brown leaves. Do a risk analysis - are they the most important plants you have (in which case you live with the blight and try to get as many tomatoes off the plant as you can), or are others more important (in which case you remove the diseased plant before it can infect others).

* Try blight resistant varieties -see this link. I have had decent performance from Juliet, Legend and Mountain Magic.

While it is discouraging, know that it is not a reflection on you as a gardener. Blight exists and to a certain extent we just have to live with it in certain parts of the country. It is a problem you can minimize, but ultimately probably not eliminate. Treasure the tomatoes you get.

I got some kind of blight or wilt on my tomatoes last year and so this year I looked through some seed catalogue websites for varieties that are resistant to several things. I'll plant one or two of each and see which goes best.

There is a lot of good advice already. however, I too live in Illinois (90 miles from Chicago) and everyone I know, and many are better gardeners than I, had a very bad year with tomatoes and many other vegetable last year. It was very odd, even zucchini did terribly.

@Jmint - I did not have the yard sprayed and am not aware of neighbors that might have.

@citytransplant - it could have just been my year too!

I've gardened organically on the same property since the 1980s. I've never used a fungicide or a pesticide. I grow tomatoes every year. I've never had blight. Most of the time I start tomatoes from seed. It's easy, they germinate reliably and fairly quickly. You can get whatever variety you can imagine. On years when it wasn't possible to start from seed, I was very careful where I bought seedlings. I bought from a local organic grower - healthy young seedlings.

I pay attention to building up the soil, using organic compost, cover crops, organic fish emulsion/seaweed fertilizer, mulch, and that's it. I do give them lots of room for air circulation and either staked or trained on a trellis.

Not that my tomatoes are perfect. Sometimes the foliage develops some yellowing late in the season, but I pull off any leaves that don't look perfect and rarely have a plant that is a failure that I will pull early.

I don't believe there are a lot of neighbors growing vegetables near me, so that might work in my favor as well. Nothing on the air floating into my garden.

Prairiemoon2, let's just say you've been VERY lucky. May it continue!

I had an abundance of tomatoes the year before last too. I am hoping citytransplant is correct to say that last year was a bad year for us here in the Chicago area. I will certainly provide the plants the care they need. Maybe we will have better weather. Thanks all for the input.

Dan, I would think in Texas, where it is very hot more of the time, you have more pressure from disease than I would here in New England. Not that NE doesn't have disease issues, I just think the difference in climate might be a factor too.

I agree, that there is always the element of luck, but I'd also assume, I must be doing something right too. [g] And I do read all about blight when there are posts about it to hear what may be done to avoid it and to quickly get rid of it if you discover it. Just trying to stay ahead of the curve and learn from others.

The east coast seems to have a higher prevalence of late blight then does the rest of the country. Not exactly sure why but it might have something to do with higher density of the population. Just like communicable disease among humans spread faster in high population areas.

I think it is clear that, at least for early blight, high temperatures and high humidity promote infection. In many fungi, the number of spores produced is strongly dependent on high temperature and high humidity. Freezing temperatures are understood to kill late blight spores. I suspect that a lot of what you're doing right is mainly living where you're living! Of course, as a result, your growing season is a lot shorter than mine.

Dan, I agree with you that high temps and high humidity have to contribute to infection, yet, Patti from Chicago had trouble in a zone 5 short growing season. And Richard Brennan above in PA said he’s had a terrible time with blight - I assume he is in a short growing season. John D is also in zone 6a PA and reports having blight. High Cold Desert doesn’t sound like someone who lives in heavily populated area like the Northeast and he reports blight. And I’m in the Northeast, where LoneJack above just said there is a higher prevalence of late blight in this area.

I’m not trying to argue with you, because solid answers are hard to come by, but we can all share our experiences and others can draw their own conclusions and that’s all I wanted to do.

To everyone, this was a really helpful conversation, thank you to all those who participated. I have decided to grow my tomatoes from seed this year and see how I do. The advice given here was spot on.

All I want to say is thanks for all the help here. I will be trying to do more preventative care on all my plants this year. I have something for the downy mildew already but I will get something for fungus. I had mildew on my cucumbers at the end of the season last year but I still had many cucumbers despite the mildew. The tomatoes were just awful and we were so sad in my house. Thanks again all

Just about all the research posted by ag centers says that late blight is killed by freeze. I take that as a solid answer. BUT, it will survive quite nicely in the middle of a warm compost pile, especially if you've made the mistake of trying to compost blight afflicted foliage. Many people do that, sometimes just by mistake. It can be warm inside a compost pile when it is frigid outside. The composting process itself does NOT kill the fungus, though some people like to believe that it does. Well, unless you have a giant pile that gets really hot inside. Most don't, and the outsides of the pile never do. In fact, just digging afflicted foliage into the soil can preserve it, and guarantee that it will return.

So you can have loads of trouble with recurring late blight, even if you live in a frigid climate.