Good idea to keep notes. Another bad year for tomatoes here also. Tore out the remaining ones a few days ago :-( The upside is now I have room for fall crops. Pretty much planted the whole area yesterday.

Next year I will be using fungicides early if I do tomatoes again next year.

Kennyp,

Another bad grasshopper year here, too. I started with tins of nolo bait in May and dusted with sevin twice, something I hate to do. It knocked them down some. I'm having the same issue where the grasshoppers don't eat the tomato plants, but eat the fruit once it's ripe. The peppers and beans are just decimated. I keep hearing the cycle will break, but I think this is year 4 and I'm pretty discouraged.

Barb

gjcore, Did you figure out what is killing your plants?
My best guess here are; cucumber mosaic virus, curly top virus, or bacterial wilt.
I think I only had 2 grasshopper in my fenced in back yard. The one ruined my biggest and best tomato every morning till I sprayed him, or her.
KennyP

Always something isn't it! I thought mine were goners when I started getting what appeared to be spotted wilt virus, but they've actually kept growing and it didn't spread as badly as I thought. I sprayed them with daconil, not sure if that helped or if the virus just wasn't too bad. Still getting plenty of tomatoes, they just ripen unevenly now. Taste fine though.

It's tempting to just spray preventative, but I don't know if that would help or not.

Now I'm battling squirrels. I'm trying Deer Off as it's supposed to work for squirrels too, but I'm not sure. The other day I went out to reapply and one of those damn varmints was up on my plants already, so I sprayed him directly. A couple of minutes later the SOB dropped a half eaten tomato from the tree above me, splatted a couple of feet away. Pretty sure I pissed him off and he was out for revenge.

squirrel stew.
So far my squirrels haven't bothered tomatoes a bit. Just that one grasshopper ate the biggest and best Cherokee purple ever morning till I kill him/her.