Hadn't heard about the corncob before, but I've been doing the manure thing for years.

I tried that this spring and the tomatoes looked horrible, all yellow. After I removed the plastic, they slowly improved until they look fine now. What seems to work better for me (and looks better too), is a thick layer (at least 8 sheets thick) of newspaper and then an inch or so of mulch on top of that. I soak the newspaper and tear it up into smaller sections and arrange them around the plant in the pot to cover all the soil. Then I sprinkle the mulch on top. When I need to water (which is a lot less often with the newspaper), I lift up the edge of the newspaper and water the soil directly, so no water touches the leaves. I think the damp newspaper also keeps the top couple inches of soil in the pot from getting too hot. We've had some high 90 days here already and the tomatoes look fine so far.

I certainly don't see it as a possible bacterial canker at all. I too thought maybe it was the work of a cutworm, but thought they did not bother plants so much once they got bigger like yours...but then again, it was not able to totally cut through the stem. That may well be what it was. You may want to consider protecting them with some sort of collar around the young plants, but I don't know how that might be done if they are planted out. Sue Here is a link that might be useful: Cutworms

We do have gutters between the house and the trellis and they run the whole length of the house. Then on the new patio overhang there are gutters on their also. Even have a drain by the trellis next to the second blue tarp that you can see in the background. This year we didn't get as much frain as we have in the past. And the pavers slope away from the pool, but they have not put the polymeric sand on the pavers yet and maybe that is the problem? When we had the original pool built 17 years ago, we didn't have the problem with water seepage into the pool, but then again they were in and out of here in 6-8 weeks, so we would never have seen it anyway. Never had a problem with the water leaking out of the poo eitherl. Normal evaporation during our hot summers, that can get into the 90 to 100 degrees, is about 2-3" per week. On the old pool we had moss rock instead of coping for the right side of the pool edge and a planting area that came right up next to it. Then on the left side we had a 2.5' concrete walkway around the pool and lawn all around and no drains except one in the lawn area.(picture of old pool and landscaping) The PB came in July and did their thing with jack-hammering the old pool surface, new tile and new coping, etc. Then stepped back and are waiting for the landscapers to get done. Landscapers still have to put in the polymeric sand in the pavers and I didn't want that on the new Black bottom PebbleTec surface. So here we sit! The slope that you are seeing is only about 3 feet high behind the pool and about 5 feet high to the right of the pool and there are french drains behind the moss rock walls that are tied into the landscape drains that go to the street.