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Old August 12, 2014   #1
Chartreuse
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Default Am I going to lose the whole garden?

Hi all,

This is my 3rd year growing tomatoes. I have 22 plants in my backyard. I had been dealing with a lot of early blight, but I had been staying on top of the pruning and it had been manageable, and then in the last few days I've been finding more and more grey/black spots all over the plants, including leaves, stems, and tomatoes. I came out this morning after yet another downpour last night and now several plants look like they are likely unsalvageable. Is this late blight, as I sadly suspect? Am I done for the season? What should I do -- remove the worst affected plants and try to save the others? Should I be spraying something? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I feel sick about this after all the months of careful effort in getting to this point
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Old August 12, 2014   #2
RayR
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Unfortunately, that does look like Late Blight. There's been a lot of reports in the north, including Ontario of Late blight coming from infected Potato fields.
http://usablight.org/
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Old August 12, 2014   #3
Chartreuse
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Is there any chance I can salvage any plants or is the garden done for the year?
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Old August 12, 2014   #4
maf
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It is probably done. About the best thing you can do is pick all the (healthy) green tomatoes, wash and dry them and let them ripen indoors in the dry.

If any plants are unaffected you could leave those in, otherwise cut down the foliage and burn it or safely dispose of it.
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Old August 12, 2014   #5
KarenO
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As above, if you act quickly you may be able to save undamaged mature green tomatoes to ripen indoors. wash in a sink of soapy water with 2 cups of household bleach added then rinse well and dry them. Place in a single layer top side down and look at them daily. remove anything that looks the slightest bit suspect. Mature green tomatoes will ripen quite well and you can salvage some of your harvest.

I am sorry about all your hard work. Late blight is a terrible disease. Be sure to bag your diseased plants and please do it right away. One of the ways blight spreads is from folks trying to salvage dying plants while the airborne spores spread to their neighbors...
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Old August 12, 2014   #6
b54red
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It does look like it might be LB but it could also be a bad case of Gray Mold. Are the tops of the plants affected also or just lower down? In either case I would recommend you use the dilute bleach spray.

Spray all the plants thoroughly with the dilute bleach spray. Make sure to hit tops and bottoms of the leaves and the mulch and soil under the plants as well as all stems. I also spray any plants right next to the tomatoes. Repeat the spraying the next day then wait a day and see if any of the plants survive. The bleach spray should kill any infected leaves and if the bottoms of the leaves are sprayed well it should stop the spread to uninfected plants. Spray with a fungicide afterwards to prevent new outbreaks but if you do see any more use the bleach immediately.

If I suspect Late Blight instead of Gray Mold then I use a slightly stronger mix for my bleach spray and risk damaging new growth because it is so important to stop the spread quickly. With the new Clorox concentrated formula I would go with 6 ounces of Clorox bleach instead of the usual 5 1/4 oz. added to a full gallon of water with a teaspoon of dish washing liquid to assure thorough wetting.

I have used this treatment 3 times with Late Blight. Only once was it really successful and that was because I started as soon as I realized what it was. The first time I waited til all the plants were badly infected and once sprayed they soon shriveled up and died. The second time I used this method I saved about half my plants. The last time I only lost a couple of plants because I treated it more aggressively. If the new growth on your plants isn't affected too much you may be able to save some of them; but you must act quickly.

Bill
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Old August 12, 2014   #7
Chartreuse
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Thank you so much for the responses! They are affected throughout most of the plant, but much more on the bottom, and very little on the new growth on the top. I have started by removing the more affected plants, ruthlessly pruning the less affected plants to remove anything that could be potentially affected, and bringing in any fruit that is close to full sized and not affected. All the while soaking with the dilute bleach solution. Sadly, I had to come inside because yet another torrential downpour just started, hopefully it will let up enough that I can get back outside soon...
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Old August 12, 2014   #8
Worth1
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You never lose your garden, just the plants.
There is always next year.

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Old August 13, 2014   #9
Tania
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So sorry to hear about that Chartreuse!

It does look like a classic late blight (unfortunately I am very familiar with it). Once the lesions appear on stems, the plants are beyond saving and should be removed immediately, to minimize spores spreading around by wind. I totally agree with what Karen suggested.

Have you managed to get any ripe fruit from these at all?

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Old August 13, 2014   #10
efisakov
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Chartreuse, stay positive. I know it is not easy. I had similar problem last year. Many different things: bugs, deceases, animals... Still some survived. I had volunteer plants than were supplying tomatoes at the end of the season. They were away from the main crop. I used to dump some not good tomatoes at a corner of the house. They came up. Now I dump them everywhere, even in my flower bed. You never know.
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Old August 14, 2014   #11
Tomato Beth
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You encouraged me to go out and clean up the bad leaves out of my garden patch today. Fungicide spraying tomorrow morning, followed shortly thereafter with a little prayer.
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Old August 14, 2014   #12
ginger2778
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Beth Carlock View Post
You encouraged me to go out and clean up the bad leaves out of my garden patch today. Fungicide spraying tomorrow morning, followed shortly thereafter with a little prayer.
Yeah, that never hurts to do anyway.
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Old August 15, 2014   #13
ReginaAnn
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Worth1 View Post
You never lose your garden, just the plants.
There is always next year.

Worth
Lovely!
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Old August 19, 2014   #14
kenny_j
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I think I have late blight too. And unfortunately it is advanced and on many plants. I am certain it was septoria I had earlier, and had been treating with some of the organic home made treatments, milk spray and a concoction of neem oil and a few other things. Thought I was holding ground but last few days have been horrible. After reviewing many pix, I am almost sure now of late blight on at least a few plants. I noticed some big dark areas on green fruit that was not there a couple days ago, and the dark lesions on stems and branches. And the blotchy, pimpling look under the skin on some riper fruit. Many plants don't have enough leaves left to shade the fruit, which now wont ripen properly. Still not sure which plants have septoria, and which have LB. Dark here now so I cant assess til tomorrow. It is amazing how fast my latest plants went down hill. This map shows it is occurring all around me. http://www.usablight.org/?q=map I live just south of Flint MI about 20 miles. It has been reported in the next county to the east, and a bunch of counties to the west. Not all counties report to this organization, so it may be in many more. Got about 80 plants full of green and or ripening fruit. Never have seen Late blight before that I know of. ARRRGH!!!
Add: 4 in the morning and can't sleep, so back looking for info on the web, found this, very good from Cornell U. http://www.longislandhort.cornell.ed...s/diagnose.htm.
Late blight is the same disease that caused the Irish Potato famine, and according to this article can spread from region to region via wind currents. With all the counties to the west of me having reported incidences earlier (more than 7 days ago) maybe it came with the prevailing winds. http://blogs.cornell.edu/hort/2010/0...-blight-blues/

Another good item from Cornell. LB Can Not survive on tomato seeds, or decaying plant tissue, it needs living plant material to over winter. Plants need to be destroyed quickly to limit the chance of the same plant getting both sex types, which could produce spores that can over winter in the soil. http://www.longislandhort.cornell.ed...eners_2010.pdf

Out this morning at 7:30 with a magnifying glass, white spoors evident on bottom of leaf lesions, ripe fruit pix and green fruit pix in above links identical to what I'm seeing. No doubt left in my mind. I can still see the evidence of the older septoria, which was bad enough. Haven't checked all gardens yet so not sure of all. My new raised bed, with all new soil has it bad. All new to me varieties, hoping to save a few of the green fruit. This had to be infected by wind and/or insects from the main slicer garden 30' away. I feel sick.

Last edited by kenny_j; August 20, 2014 at 07:49 AM. Reason: add
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Old August 20, 2014   #15
efisakov
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Kenny, for the new bed where did you get the soil from?
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