It looks like the projected spores from artillery fungus to me. Do you have wood mulch under the plants? I've linked a picture of the mushroom (they are very small) below. Put a white index card near the wood mulch and see if it collects similar black dots. They won't hurt the plants, but don't park your car nearby. Bellatrix Here is a link that might be useful: artillery fungus

I'm with you on the mulberries. I'm in Indiana and boy there's a big difference in color when the berries are ripe! Speaking of critters, I found a tiny toad on my Sum & Substance yesterday and picked him up to show the boyfriend. Unfortunately, when I put him back in his home, Fang the Ugly Dog was watching. I spent the entire evening and all day today arguing with Obstinate Ugly Dog about how he is NOT going to eat the toad. He just plants his legs and will not move from the hosta... I have to pick him up and head to the front porch. I see him glancing over there when he thinks I'm not watching. I expect this will continue the rest of the summer. The neighbors were laughing at me again. I expect that to continue the rest of the summer as well.

Hi Sheri! I think that virtually anything you order from Laurel has a pretty good chance of producing fall tomatoes. In many ways, it is EASIER to get a good fall crop than a good spring crop. The only trick to it is to keep the plants growing well so they will be ready to bloom and set fruit THE VERY MINUTE that the fall temperatures drop into the right temperature range. Then, all you can do is hope for a late first frost instead of an early first frost. Most years, the first frost does tend to be late as opposed to early, and in those years you will have tons of fall tomatoes. Of the four you are thinking of ordering, here's what I know about them: Anna Russian is a family heirloom from Russia. It is an indeterminate oxheart, and oxhearts don't generally produce very many tomatoes per plant. However, Anna is considered a heavy producer for an oxheart. Just don't expect it to produce a LOT of tomatoes like you would see on a high-producing beefsteak. It does have that really thin, wispy foliage like Green Sausage and a few others, so when you see the foliage, don't be fooled into thinking the plant is sick! That strange foliage is normal for it. It also does produce fairly early for an oxheart and the tomatoes are usually pinkish-red in our heat. The fruit are juicy and tasty. Marianna's Peace produces very large redish-pink beefsteaks on potato-leaved indeterminate vines that get very large. Right now it is one of the tallest plants in my garden, with an height around 6' tall. It produces fruit in about 75 to 80 days and they are pretty good--not too tangy, not too sweet. It is not a heavy producer for me, but it is well worth growing because it is a yummy producer. It is pretty disease-tolerant. The lower leaves tend to yellow earlier than most and more than most, but it doesn't seem to affect the fruit quality or production. Paul Robeson is an interesting black tomato that has given me fits over the years. I grew it for three years before I got really good fruit set, but the first two years were very dry, hot, droughty years and that may be why I had trouble with it initially. In my garden it gets about 5' to 6' tall and spreads out a moderate amount. The brownish-maroonish fruit are incredibly tasty, though, with that rich, complex, out-of-this-world flavor often found in black tomatoes like Black Krim, Noir de Crimee' and Black From Tula. It is a fairly early producer, slightly faster than Black Krim and Cherokee Purple in my garden most years. Some years it is prone to early blight, but that tends to be more of a problem on spring tomatoes than fall tomatoes. I think it is because our fall tomatoes have less humidity to deal with. Kellogg's Breakfast is a big ol' whopper of an organge beefsteak tomato. It took me a while to get around to trying it, because I was perfectly happy with Nebraska Wedding, which also produces large orange beefsteak tomatoes. It is a rather large indeterminate with regular-leaf foliage. The leaves are very finely-dissected and sort of narrow compared to most RL plants. It is a fairly late tomato, but so is every other really large orange beefsteak I have grown. The fruit are large and grow in clusters. They turn a gorgeous shade of orange (just wait until you cut into one!) and are very rich and tasty. It is a very meaty tomato with small seed locules. My only complaint with KB is that it is VERY HARD to raise from seed. It is slow to germinate and slow to grow and prone to die at some point along the way, long before it is large enough to put out into the garden. Since you are ordering from Laurel, though, that won't be a problem for you. I am glad you found Arkansas Traveler. It can outproduce almost anything else in the heat simply because it can handle the heat better than most anything else. Now, about those black eggs. I always remove and destroy any eggs I find in the garden if I am not sure that they are the eggs of beneficial insects. There are many things your little black eggs COULD be. If you have aphids, you will find them on the underside of the leaves, and you may have ants traveling up and down the plants to farm the aphids. Aphids can be green, pink, black, red or yellowish. I've linked a great website from Texas A&M University below. See if you can find an insect on it that matches whatever is eating the leaves in your garden. Or, if you can't find an insect on the TAMU page that matches what is in your garden, then give us a description of the foliar damage. Big holes? Little holes? Damage only on interior portions of leaves or also on edges? Might be flea beetles. They make lots and lots of small holes in the foliage and tend to be worst on newly transplanted plants. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: TAMU Pest Page

Thanks for the responses. Yes, they do spread to the branches and I noticed that these dots are a lot easier to remove when they are on branches. The leaves are naturally variegated and has nothing to do with the black dots. No it is not a recent addition. This plant has been there for about a year and I started to notice the black spots maybe 1 month ago and they multiplied quite rapidly. My location is in the Philippines. This plant is directly planted onto the garden beside other plants. Surprisingly the three plants beside it do not have these spots. The infected one is a local citrus plant we call "calamansi" (scientific name: Citrus xmicrocarpa). I have a couple more citrus plants in the garden, an american lemon, another variety of the "calamansi" and a few others. Luckily they are not beside this infected plant and are healthy and do not show signs of the pest. If they are Citrus Scale, what is the best way to control them?