Hey Tracie, I had the same issue this season. My spots were a little smaller than yours -- they looked like someone had taken an ink pen and dotted thousands of tiny marks on the leaves. I believe it is called bacterial speck. Yours looks larger, so it may qualify as bacterial SPOT. I believe they are both same condition caused by, well, bacteria getting on the leaves somehow. Interestingly, my affected plant was also a Better Boy. I tried lopping off the leaves that were affected, but it did no good. I ended up destroying the plant. I am no expert, so maybe some seasoned vets can help you find a way to salvage the plant. Perhaps a fungicide will work. Also, be sure your plants are well mulched and dirt is not able to splash on the plant when watering. Also never water the plant from above -- that will keep the foilage dry and help prevent this in the future.

Bonnie, I am sorry you tossed it out. I agree with bdobs now--don't think they would have been a problem. Just cover with a bit more potting mix. And no you can't use the earthbox without the cover as rain would wet all the fertilizer all the time which you don't want. I have seen people do that but then they would have to mess with adding more fert. as it leaches down and that defeats the purpose of fertilizing once and then forget it. People should maybe put that organic fertilizer they send in the freezer for 24/48 hours before using --that would kill the larvae if it was already infested. Then when you use it be sure and cover with potting mix so flies can't get to it. Don't be too disappointed--they really do work great. I have used organic fertilizer with no problems at all.

Buy a good hand weeder. I don't know why they aren't more readily available. I was able to replace my recently lost one with a $9 tool which is ok. Blade is offset but essentially it's "L" shaped. You can hack up the soil if needed but mostly you run the blade about a half inch below the soil to uproot weeds. One garden writer recommends a cobra headed weeder. If there are a lot of smaller weeds, I used a swirling motion to bring weeds to top and round up in a small pile. If they are very small, just pull the blade through the soil. If the weed has a long root runner, hold the top in one hand and drag the blade thru the soil as you gently pull so the long root comes up and doesn't break off. I've been having very good luck with building raised beds using the lasagna method which doesn't not require a rototiller. Best to build the bed the season or year before. Advantage is usually very few weeds the first year. I am protecting some plants until flowering with garden fabric, Agribon from Johnny's which I was able to buy off Craigslist. I have bee successful using an animal repellant spray which I bought at the farm and feed store. It contains coyote or fox urine. Doesn't stay stinky for long. Deer are around but haven't been visiting. I think they are eating other things. Although before the spray they ate some of my hosta. You might try putting black netting over your garden. Hope your next efforts are more successful. Keep trying.

Michelle, The book is great. At one point it was out of print and impossible to find and the used copies you could find online were considered rare books and priced accordingly (in the hundreds of dollars) It later was reprinted, and Dr. Cotner himself said that given how many pages the book was (around 400 I believe) and all the photos it contained, it was so expensive to print that he himself didn't blame the publisher for not wanting to put it back into production because it was very expensive to produce "nowadays". He also said at that time that it would be impossible to write/publish a book like that nowadays because of the cost, but you know, the demand for it was so high that additional printings did happen well after he said that. That was likely in the late 1990s or early 2000s when he said that, and I guess publishing costs had soared since it was first published. Kim, If I was gardening in place that was windy like that and it was a permanent place where I was going to be long-term, I'd plant a windbreak around the garden, but 15-20' from the garden so it didn't shade out too much of the garden ground. Windbreaks can be lifesavers when gardening on flat, windy land. If it wasn't a permanent place where investing in lots of large evergreen shrubs or trees was possible, I'd grow a triple row, densely planted, of some sort of large annual plant that would at least provide some windbreak....maybe some of the tall grain-type amaranths (harvest the flowers before they go to seed or you'll have 1,000,001 amaranth plants each year forever after), or some of the more densely-branched tall sunflowers or a thick, dense planting of field corn (its stalks are sturdier than sweet corn), ornamental corn or sorghum. I have used broom corn interpanted with hyacinth beans as a wind break by my yard is somewhat sheltered by woodland on three sides, so the 12' tall broom corn stalks didn't break. Because they get so tall, I do not know if they would work in your windier area. I think the wind might break the stalks or cause them to lodge. If the two of you do not read the local Texas gardening magazines (Neil Sperry's "Gardens" (now only available, I believe, as a digital online publication) at his website, and "Texas Gardener" (believe it is based in central TX but covers the whole state), I recommend them highly. Texas Gardener has a stronger focus on veggies, but does cover other topics as well, and everything Neil Sperry writes and publishes is pure gold for Texas gardeners. The last time I bought a new copy of Dr. Cotner's "The Vegetable Book", I purchased it directly from Texas Gardener Press, one of my favorite sources for books about gardening in this region. Here's a link to their book page: Bookstore at Texas Gardener Press I am out in the garden for a large portion of every day that the weather allows it at this time of the year. Once the real heat sets in and the temperatures are in the 90s and above every day, I spend much less time out there, mostly only harvesting fruits, veggies and herbs, watering, or cutting flowers for bouquets. By then I hopefully have enough mulch on the beds that weeding is not need as often, because you're not going to find me outside weeding once it gets really hot. I do try to keep the garden well-weeded through at least the end of June. After that, when we mow weekly, I dump more grass clipping mulch on top of the existing mulch and that's about it. If we get a rare, cool and maybe misty or drizzly day in the middle of the summer, I'm out in the garden in a heartbeat weeding. We had a great garden year in 2012 and I had tons of tomato plants. Know what that meant? It meant I could spend up to 8 to 10 hours a day in June and July mostly just harvesting. I blame the Principe' Borghese tomatoes for that harvesting fiasco. I had a lot of them that year (for sun-dried tomatoes) and could spend a whole day just harvesting those 12 plants because each one would have hundreds of bite-sized tomatoes ripe and ready to pick and dry. I've stopped growing it now because that was just too much time spent harvesting small tomatoes and also have cut back on how many cherry tomato plants I grow for exactly the same reason. If I ever grow Principe Borghese again, I'll just pull up the plants by their roots when they are heavily loaded with ripe tomatoes and hang them in the garage to dry. (This can work well in a dry climate in a dry summer, but in a more humid year, the tomatoes may rot before they dry.) I had my fill that summer of slaving away in the garden, harvesting all day in 90-100+ degree weather. I'm trying to garden smarter, not harder, these days because I'm not getting any younger and spending all day every day out in the summer heat no longer is an option for me. Evern since the summer of 2011, when I got a mild case of heat exhaustion at least 3 separate times when we were out on fires in 112-116 degree heat, I just cannot tolerate the heat like I once could, and I have to be really careful in the summer because of that. Planting tomatoes as early as possible helps because I'd rather be harvesting and canning the main tomato crop in May and June than in June and July. There's plenty to harvest as it is in the summer months, so getting most of the tomatoes done early means fewer hours out in the hot sun. I also bought a beach-type sun umbrella a few years ago and will carry it out to the garden and stick it in the soil and work in its shade. This works better if I am doing something that keeps me in a relatively small area for a while rather than moving around every 5 minutes. If y'all have too much summer wind, this might not work for you if the wind keeps blowing the umbrella away. Dawn