I too have been losing carrot seedlings, as fast as they come up. I was keeping the carrot bed free of debris to give the seedlings every chance to grow well. I have ruled out animals, slugs, cutworms, earwigs etc. I now believe it is the dew worms eating them. They consume HUGE amounts of vegetation every night. The two photos give evidence. I find these food stashes in worm holes all over my gardens and grounds. The worms come out at night, need to eat, no debris, so they grab the carrot seedlings. These worms are quite strong, which you will know if you've ever gone picking them to use as bait. They can really hang on. The green leaf is a birch leaf which had fallen to the ground. They grab the vegetation and twist it into the ground. The lower photo is of a pile of debris gathered into a hole, including the stick, which is about 1/8" in dia. These worms can stretch out to about 10" long. I have been having some success saving my seedlings buy spreading a thin layer of grass clippings on the carrot bed. It only takes a few days and the clippings are almost totally consumed. Notice how the earth around the hole is almost devoid of debris... it's all in the hole.

Ilene, It does help. Here's why the temperatures are important. I sometimes see either bacterial speck or bacterial spot in my garden during very cool and rainy periods, which means that here in Love County I see those diseases most often in March through May. So, it is not inconceivable that you had them appear in June since y'all were cooler and wetter than we were at that time. If you have bacterial diseases present in your soil, you can never really get rid of them. They spread via the splashing of rain, water runoff during heavy rainfall or irrigation, insects, tools, and people working around the plants (can transfer bacteria from plant to plant via your hands, gardening gloves or tools). The bacteria survive in and around your garden on debris from past plants, volunteers from seed from diseased plants, and even in weeds. Bacterial Speck (Pseudomonas syringae) is the one I see earliest in the spring, often in March and April. It appears when plants are wet and temperatures are in the 55 to 77 degree range, often right after the plants are transplanted into the ground. It shows up first as small dark brownish-black specks on the leaves, and sometimes there is a very, very narrow ring of yellow around the brown specks. This disease affects leaves and foliage, but only affects green fruits (and, normally, it appears before you'd see any ripe fruit in our climate). On the fruit, the infection shows up as really, really small dark specks, less than 1/16" in diameter. Sometimes the part right around the specks is darker green than the rest of the tomato. The specks may be slightly raised above the surface on green tomatoes, but as the tomatoes ripen and the disease progresses, the infected areas become sunken and generally you will not see ripening around those specks. Bacterial Spot (Xanthomonas campestris) is the one I usually see second earliest in the year, if I see it at all and I'm more likely to see it from late April through late May. You will see it when weather is warm and either humid or wet or both. It appears when temperatures are in the 75 to 86 degree range. The bacteria enters your plants through natural openings or wounds and can infect the stems, leaves and fruit. On the leaves, the spots are dark brown, take on a sort of "greasy" appearance when foliage is wet, and are very small, rarely exceeding 1/8" in diameter. It is hard to tell what you have when Bacterial Spot first appears because in its early stages it is virtually identical to Bacterial Speck and to the early stages of Septoria Leaf Spot, which is fungal and not bacteria. However, if the leaf spotting does not progress to lighter gray centers in the middle of the older brown spots, you know it is not Septoria. With Bacterial Spot, first you have the brown spots, then you see a general yellowing of your leaves and then the leaves take on a scorched (brown and dead) appearance. Foliar blighting (rapid death) progresses upward on heavily infected plants. If you have fruit on the plants at this point, you'll see the fruit spots appear on the green fruit as raised, scabby spots that are very dark brown and can be up to about 1/3" in diameter, although many stay smaller than that. If you have ripe fruit, the spots turn into sunken areas that look water-soaked. Once you have bacterial speck and spot, there is no cure so all you can do is practice good crop roation and good sanitation. The bacteria survives on plant residue or debris, including seeds (so don't save seeds from infected fruit and don't let volunteers live if they sprout in that area). Mulching helps because it keeps bacterial residing in the soil from splashing up onto plants when it rains. Watering only with soaker hoses or drip irrigation helps, but you can't control dew or rainfall. Watch your peppers closely, because if you have bacterial spot (and I think you may), it can spread to them. Bacterial speck and spot is a problem whenever leaves stay wet, so you've certainly had the conditions for it these last two years. You can spray weekly, but it needs to be with a bacteriacide and not just a fungicide, so look for something that is a mixture of a fungicide PLUS copper. It won't entirely prevent the disease, but it helps reduce its incidence, slow down its development and helps you get a better yield from infected plants. Bacterial Canker is less common, at least in my garden. It is caused by Corynebacterium michiganensis and it is really hard to diagnose because its symptoms look so similar to those of several other diseases. A lot of people think you can identify it by the stem canker that show up with it, and you can, but it does not always show stem canker in every case. Canker shows up mainly as scorched (brown, dead) leaves and blight (death) from the lower part of the plant at first and then moving upward. One way to know if you have Bacterial Canker is to split open stems on affected plants. If the stems have internal discoloration that is a streaky mix of reddish-brown and yellow, you have baterial canker. Eventually, as the disease progresses, you'll see whitish cankers on the stems and leaf petioles, although sometimes the plant dies before symptoms progress that far. You'll get canker spots on the fruit, about 1/8" to 1/4" in diameter and they have a brown center surrounded by a white ring. They're often referred to as birdseye spots. If plants are infected with canker early, they usually die. Sometimes if they are larger and stronger, they may survive. If you had sudden wilt and death, but did not see yellowing on the leaves, I'd suspect bacterial wilt. It is easy to diagnose "after the fact". Just suspend in a glass of water a clean, cut end of a stem from an infected plant. If what killed your plants was bacterial wilt, you'll quickly see a sort of milky-white stream of slimey bacterial cells flowing into the water from the stem. If you have bacterial wilt, it is VERY hard to eradicate. Remove and dispose of all affected plant debris and don't compost it. I guess that I most strongly suspect Bacterial Spot, but also think maybe Fusarium Wilt, which is viral and not bacterial. So, here's a little about Fusarium Wilt. Fusarium Wilt is caused when the pathogen Fusarium oxysporum sp. lycopersici invades a plant's vascular system. It probably is the most commonly seen wilt disease in our state. (A lot of people think they have Verticillium Wilt, but it isn't found here, as far as I know.) This is how it progresses. See if it sounds like what you saw on your plants. First you see a yellowing of lower foliage and those yellow leaves do eventually wilt, brown and die. Sometimes, but not always, it appears first on one side of the plant and then progresses upward for a while before it moves to the other side of the plant. If you have this and you are not sure if it is Fusarium Wilt or not, cut a stem or petiole from an infected plant and inspect it. You'll see some reddish-brown discoloration in the tissue between the pith (stem center) and the outer green part of the stem. When I go to the OSU Fact Sheet that contains info on Fusarium Wilt, the color photo on it looks a lot like some of your photos. Fusarium Wilt is a late spring to early summer disease here, usually appearing when daytime temps are in the 80 to 90 degree range. There are at least 3 known races of Fusarium Wilt in tomatoes, but I think race 3 is only in California. Modern-day hybrids often have some resistance to one, two or all three races bred into them. You'll know by the appearance of F, FF, or FFF in the letters that follow the hybrid plant name. Heirlooms may or may not have resistance--it's just that no one has tested them to prove if they do or not. Unfortunately, resistance is only resistance and not immunity. If you have Fusarium Wilt, it will live in your soil forever. It also is seed-borne, so you can get it through no fault of your own. I don't know what kind of soil you have, but it seems to be worse in sandier soils (I don't know why). I might lose 1 or 2 plants a year to it some years in my clay soil, and none in other years. Early blight is my worst disease here, and I am not convinced you have it since you didn't see obvious concentric, target-like brown circles surrounded by yellowing leaf tissue. It is caused by Alternaria solani and is the most common leaf-spotting fungal disease in Oklahoma, and perhaps all over the country as well. Early Blight causes excessive defoliation and, because it often appears when fruit load is very heavy, that can lead to sunscald and fruit loss. When I have EB showing up on a plant, I promptly pick all the fruit the minute they hit the breaker or "blush of pink" stage. EB will move from the leaves, where it first shows symptoms, to the stems and even the fruit. (I get my fruit off the plant before it can move to them though.) EB starts at the bottom and progresses upward with lower foliage sloughing and dying off. SOMETIMES, with SOME plants, new growth comes out and the plant actually "outgrows" the disease and survives. In my garden, Brandy Boy and Snow White are two plants that often survive EB, but a lot of others do not. I usually SEE signs of EB the third week in June, when we are really hot and humid, but have seen it as early as the second week of May, if May is a hot month. EB most often attacks stressed plants, but ALL plants in Oklahoma are stressed, aren't they? Sometimes the stress is too much heat or too much or too little rain, but even just carrying a very heavy load of ripening fruit is enough to stress the plant so it is susceptible to EB. I don't think you have Septoria Leaf Spot because you have tons of really obvious small spots with it, and in your photos, I see larger brownish areas. I have practically written a book and don't know if I've helped at all. I don't have much experience with Gray Leaf Spot, caused by Stemphllium solani, so I don't know if it is what you have. I do know that it can resemble the early spring damage you see from flea beetles, because tissue necrosis occurs in the center of the specks, giving it that shot-hole appearance, and I think you said you were seeing some of that, so you may have Gray Leaf Spot. WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN AND HAVE WE FIGURED IT OUT? I have no idea. The green tomatoes that have had that rash area probably have Bacterial Spot. You can rule in or rule out Bacterial Canker by inspecting the stems as i described above. If it is Bacterial Wilt, you can diagnose it by suspending the cut stem in the glass of water and watching for a discharge, as described above. I still lean towards thinking it is Fusarium Wilt but also with perhaps Gray Leaf Spot and/or Early Blight. I am pretty sure it is NOT Southern Blight (instant wilt of seemingly healthy green plants followed by a white mold on the stem and surronding soil). I've only had Southern Blight on one plant here in ten years. Pretty sure it is too hot here for it to be late blight, and when you have late blight you generally see white mold on the leaves and late blight spoils the fruit too. The symptoms don't match anthracnose although you do sometimes see anthracnose on fruit AFTER EB has severely defoliated and weakened the plants. I assume it isn't any of the soil rot diseases since your tomatoes are fine, except for the smaller, newer ones that don't develop properly. You could go to the OSU Fact Sheets and look at the photos there if you haven't already, but like I already said, the real-life stuff I see in my garden doesn't compare well to photos because in real life you often have a mixture of several sets of symptoms. Long ago I printed the three OSU Fact Sheets on Common Diseases of Tomatoes, and I have read them and looked at them so many times that I feel like I could probably recite them from memory. They are Common Diseases of Tomatoes Part I. Diseases Caused By Fungi (F-7625) Common Diseases of Tomatoes Part II. Diseased Caused By Bacteria, Viruses, and Nematodes. (F-7626) Common Diseases of Tomatoes Part III. Non-Infectious Diseases. (F-7627) I sort of disagree with their title (but they are the experts and I am not). What they call non-infectious diseases is what I think of as mostly physiological disorders, but that's just me. For all the issues in the first two factsheets, the only "solution" is prevention. Once you have bacterial and fungal stuff in your soil, it is usually there forever. Sometimes you can kill it will solarization. It used to be you could fumigate with something like Vapam, which is no longer on the market, but I don't know that it was all that effective back when people used it, and as an organic gardener, I wouldn't have used it anyway. If it wasn't for bacterial and fungal disease, which I tend to refer to "foliar issues" in general, everyone in the USA would have a row of tomatoes in their backyards. If there is anything that discourages gardeners to the point that they give up growing tomatoes, it probably is foliar issues and nematodes. Dawn

No hanging back allowed, Lindy! I swear, the biggest problem we have at the swaps is getting people to take the plants!!! At the very first swap at CharleneÂs house, Spring Â07, we couldnÂt get anybody to say what they wanted! You were there! Remember, everybody just kind of stood there and wouldnÂt admit they wanted anything! I thought I was gonna have to bring half of my stuff back home that time! SoÂitÂs the same for everybody, Lindy! (That includes you, Holly/H Giest!) Whether youÂre able to bring plants or not, you get an equal chance to get what you want. If you see something posted on the "picture" thread that you want, say so! IÂm bringing over 80 plants already, and there will be more! And IÂm SO not the only one bringing stuff! There will be plentyÂlike there always is. (And I, for one, definitely donÂt want to wind up bringing anything back homeÂthat I brought!) Whatever you get, you can always pot it up into bigger pots if necessary to keep it until you move into your new home! June isnÂt that far away! Why donÂt you post your strawberries and possible rhubarb seedlings over on the picture thread. IÂm SURE somebody will be interested in the strawberries. They always seem to go! And everybody else! Check out the swap Picture Thread where people are starting to post what they hope to bring (with or without pictures!), and if you see something you know for sure you want, let the person/people know, and theyÂll mark it for you. So far, including "guests," IÂm showing 28 people who hope to come! Skybird P.S. Charlene, just to let you know, IÂm bringing name tags, sign in sheets, and the "numbers" again! Here is a link that might be useful: Picture Thread to go with the Swap Thread!

Yeah, varieties have frequently fallen victims to the shameless manipulations of seed vendors that could care less about keeping uniformity and in some circumstances have "created" variety "exclusives" for marketing purposes and accidentally or purposefully added to the confusion, or have a cash cow variety and breed into it some additional traits but still refer to it as the old name to capitalize on its following under the guise of being "improved" (when they may have messed up the parents in some cases too lol). In the case of 'Goliath' it appears extreme: this name does not refer to a single strain, variety or whatever description we get thrown at us to make a sale. It seems like it is a "series" of "strains" leveraged off the name of a tomato that may once have been known as a hybrid tomato variety named 'Goliath', itself an early maturing derivative of the popular 'Big Beef' hybrid that has great production and was developed by a friend at Petoseed in the years before the Mexican buyout. Check out the 2017 catalog of Seeds and Such: Catalog link. In there, J. Wayne Hilton's discusses the Goliath hybrid which suggest to me it was possibly a European adaptation from the parentage of Big Beef, he says: “When I founded the company ‘Totally Tomatoes’ in 1993 ... and in 1995 I introduced Goliath (Indeterminate, 65 days), a European version of Big Beef, with gorgeous, blemish-free, bright red fruits, weighing 10-15 ounces and endowed with a perfect balance of acids and sugars to give it that old-timey, real-tomato flavor. After I sold Totally Tomatoes in 1999, the new owners changed Goliath to the “Pio” strain to gain even more productivity. But the ‘Pio’ strain of Goliath is not as round and uniform as the previous strain I first introduced. The current strain ‘Pio’ [DTM 70] further refines the original Goliath to add more productivity, better disease resistance and greater adaptability ..." Hilton also lists the 'old fashioned' Goliath 'Beef Maestro' variety [78 DTM], the Goliath 'Jubilation' yellow one [70 DTM] you probably got, and then the Goliath 'Boy-O-Boy' strain [75 DTM], which all seem to be newer additions to the "Goliath series". To be honest, it sounds like a bunch of gobbledygook to me and between that an Totally Tomatoes listing 'Pio' as the original 65 DTM, I would run away from that. But if you really must find out, email Hilton at the address given in the catalog as he is the one who probably knows best what is going on if he chooses to kindly share it with you. Add to that that there is an open pollinated variety 'Goliath' you can get from TGS claimed to be an unrelated 1800's Pennsylvania pink OP heirloom at this link: Goliath 85 DTM pink 'heirloom' and there is a Bush Goliath and an open pollinated version of that one, as well as an open pollinated version of one of the Goliath hybrids from Marianna's called Goliath Red: Marianna's link to 75 DTM OP Goliath derived from some Goliath F1 of Big Beef parentage. I hope this helps you not lose the farm. Personally, I would go for Big Beef F1 (73 DTM) and not touch that Goliath of a mess with a ten foot pole. I know some people get a hankering for a variety name, but as you can see, varieties come and go and between falling from use, bogus marketing, and those who really care, it is sometimes like being stranded on a rowboat in the middle of the ocean, springing leaks to keep track of what is going on. If you think you know, it might just be a $5 name and an illusion to go with it. Best of luck I understand your frustration. Cheers PC