Overwatering compounded by too-cool nights can easily do them in, usually by triggering a fungal infection. That would also explain why your okra, cantaloupe and cucumber seedlings are doing the worst of all. I too raise seedlings in an unheated hoophouse where it gets down close to freezing at night. All the warm-weather crops have heat mats on at night and I throw on layers of floating row cover on a string support system to keep them around 60 degrees at night. The heat mats are on a timer so they turn off before sunrise. You're sure the manure was very well composted? Was it steer manure? Regardless of how well it was composted, manure is not recommended as a seedling potting medium because it can sometimes be high in ammonium salts. The symptoms your tomatoes are showing are somewhat reminiscent of ammonium toxicity. In the soil, bacteria quickly convert it to nitrate but these bacteria are not as abundant in containers. This ties in with cool nights and crop type - the combination of cold soil, high ammonium load and warmth-loving crop is a bad one. I would redo a potting mix and skip the manure. Substitute with compost. This post was edited by Slimy_Okra on Fri, Apr 18, 14 at 11:53

Susannah, what other tomato seeds do you have left? I have a mess of them. We have been getting drizzles all day, cloudy, gray and overcast. I wrapped my seedling condo and potting bench in plastic yesterday cause I thought we were gonna get a downpour. The 'Greenhouse' effect and todays dampness really made some of the baby plants shoot up!! the cukes and squashes are really taking off as are the already planted up Big Zac, Early Girl and Better bush tomatoes. I also have a healthy volunteer coming up. It looks like a Husky Cherry, but it is in the area the Yellow Pear and Black Cherries were last year. I sunk it deeper and dusted it and will let it be to see what we get. I am disappointed so far in the seed strips I got. The radishes, like I said, are really crowded together and the depth they suggested is way too shallow, the little seedlings are toppling over. Will have to replant some more deeper. Once we get outta the drizzles(supposedly by mid-week) I'll take some pics of my progress. Looking forward to seeing everyone else's fall/winter gardens too!

Teresa, With the tall tomato plant, you can let the uppermost branches cascade back down outside the cage. If they begin to have a heavy fruitset on those 'cascading' branches, you'll need to use something to tie them to the cages as they grow downward or the heavy weight of the fruit can break the branches. Or, you can top your plant by cutting off any growth that extends much beyond the top of the cage. Topping the plants may lead to the formation of additional side branches and suckers, but it will eliminate the issue with cascading branches that might break. I have a Tess's Land Race Currant that is in an 8' tall cage and it already has climbed out of the top and has branches that are cascading back down. With this particular variety, cascading branches normally don't break because their fruit load is comparatively light. They have oodles of fruit, bu since the currant-sized fruit are so tiny, they don't produce enough weight to break a cascading branch. Did the squash literally go to the dogs....as in the dogs picked it and played with it? Or, was it too watery from all the rain so you gave it to the dogs because of poor flavor/texture? Our dogs think tomatoes and certain winter squash, pumpkins and gourds are just big "balls" for them to pick and play with, so I have to watch them if they are near/in my garden. For me, pole beans produce better in fall and bush beans produce well in spring/early to mid-summer or in fall. None of the beans I grow produce well during the hottest part of the summer though. I believe George has said some pole beans (maybe all?) are daylength-sensitive so that explains why healthy plants won't set pods sometimes. Your peppers may do better in the fall. Some years mine do well all summer and other years only in the fall. This year has been a great pepper year here so far--maybe our best summer ever. I think for it is has been a combination of luck and cool nights/rainfall at the right times in June and July. Usually it is too hot here for the sweet peppers to do very well until fall, but this year has been great. Hot peppers do well in the heat so they've been more consistent here, year in and year out. I haven't whipped my toms today.....but the winds last evening whipped them pretty well! The tomtato plants today, after a couple of days of rain and some cooler temps and some clouds for relief from the sun, look better than they have since early June. They look so good that I am going to find it hard to remove many of them to plant fall tomatoes once I fill up the fairly small space I had saved for fall tomatoes. For a year that started off rough, our veggie garden has been amazingly productive. I am hoping the fall plants (and the plants carried over from spring to fall) are as productive, and if the rains continue, I bet they will be. In May, with severely waterlogged soil that seemed like it never would dry, I was tempted to give up on the garden. I'm glad I didn't because it all worked out very well once the waterlogged soil dried up--not a perfect year, and not the absolute best year ever, but close! How odd is that? In May I would have said that the garden was doomed and wouldn't do anything at all this year and I would have been so wrong. Dawn

or your responses so far. i apologise for posting update photoes so late. My nam doc mai, as you gentleman have previously said has started new growth. I decidede to transplant it from pot to garden soil. here it is how it looks. One problem though is that the pugged branches still look touched from some kind of athracnose. Can you guys be kind to help me deal with that or should i just leave it as new shoots are coming out? any reply is appreciated>