septoria

aphids

septoria leaf spot is just going nuts right now. Interestingly, the heavy bearing tomatoes got it the worst , the slacking tomatoes look just fine.

This is not the typical list of scourges ... let's call them the main impediments to my tomato-growing so far this year:

= Emergency appendectomy and four days in the hospital (the seedlings in the basement sailed through it without any problems)
= Landscaper who still hasn't finished my tomato trellis
= Back problems which further delayed planting
= Squirrel (?) who ate half my Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye vine
= Stink bugs in the grape tomatoes
= Squirrel (?) getting fat eating the grape tomatoes growing in the compost pile

Oh, and there have been three little black caterpillars that I can't identify (I've seen them on the apple trees as well -- just spent an interesting time perusing caterpillar photos, but couldn't find them, though I did find the fluffy white and poisonous Puss Caterpillar, which I'd seen crawling on a Happy Returns daylily earlier today, but luckily had the vague feeling I shouldn't touch it, plus my hands were full of mail and several kinds of daylily seed pods, which I was trying to keep straight).

Sorry! No diseases, no hornworms even ... so far.

* Septoria. A constant companion this rainy summer.
* Early Blight. Not too horrible, but there.
* Fruitworms. Only 3 or 4.
* Late Blight. Just within the last 10 days or so. Seems to be affecting the biggest and most mature plants first. Found it on a second plant last night. Never saw this disease before this year.

Absolutely no hornworms this year. Maybe they don't like cool rainy weather. I'd rather fight hornworms than late blight, however. :-)

Missingtheobvious has us beat, I think. Sorry about the appendectomy. The back problems are worse, though, as they occasionally come back when you least expect them. Hope you are better now.

I've never seen a Puss Caterpillar. You Southern folks have "interesting" beasties. :-)

Early blight
aphids
Japanese beetles
flea beetles
septoria

Here's what the Puss Caterpillar looks like; older instars are tawny or gray and look like they have cowlicks. There are stinging hairs, so never touch one!

Too cool spring. Too much rain. Too hot summer.
Growth was delayed due to low temps and standing water in the middles. They're doing ok now but have stopped blooming. They are more juicy than normal and less sugar and acid.

1. Birds. Aggressive and fearless this year. Pecked everything--unripe, partially ripe, ripe, green, yellow, red... didn't matter. Peck peck peck.

2. BER

3. Heat. The third hottest July on record, and August shows no sign of being anything different.

1. aphids
2. early blight...... much later in the season
3. late blight....... appeared same time as early, but surprisingly not destroying all my plants, only a few affected.
3. found only one hornworm, thank god
oh and did i mention, it has been raining for the past three months like crazy, yup, but im pulling through

1. stink bugs
2. bird pecks
3. smallish black or brown worms (army worms? forgive my ignorance)
4. septoria or early blight. i didn't treat it (big mistake!) because the plants were outgrowing it big time while weather was dry. :(
5. a few hornworms
6. weeks of heavy rains after the long dry spell, still raining daily, causing splits on the biggest toms
7. early blight that has almost killed them off

Curly Top Virus. I just pulled out and threw away my beautiful Brandywine today. Up until mid-July, it was the most magnificent plant in the garden.
So depressing.

A tan clay in my soil suffocated a dozen seedlings that were planted into pools of water then covered in compost and soil (I thought they'd like it). They curled up and died. If floating the clay coats the roots and chokes the oxygen supply. A local master gardener recommends I plant in almost dry soil then water to stop the clay from "floating" into a dangerous consistency. It seemed to work.

Lowering high alkaline soil is my fall project. A mineral deficiency due to the soil PH, not a lack of the mineral, made things unsightly low on half my plants.

Fusarium struck a Park's Whopper seedling and a producing SS100. Confirmed by the same master gardener after examining the brown vascular tissue.

Early Blight and Septoria came but didn't do much damage as a little Daconil and the arid climate work together nicely.

Giant intelligent grasshoppers landed and colonized an apricot tree they defended violently along with my determinate tomato garden.

Milkweed bugs without Milkweed plants find tomatoes a suitable substitute. They damaged almost a third of my crop, and must be eradicated next year.

A short lived whitefly infestation was taken out by a mysterious beneficial, which was too cool.

A dull white moth dumped a bunch of eggs that became small caterpillars. They didn't do much damage and were easy to pick.

A very tiny and fast moving bug could be found inside a lot of my insect damage. I haven't IDed it but will try to get some pictures when I can. It is almost too small to photograph, at least with my camera.

Heat and moisture related radial cracking through much of the harvest. I think I have this one reasonably solved for next year. Thanks, I think to Thirsty or Lazy, one of those Phoenix growers, for explaining multiple light waterings.

When I stopped tending the Celebrity garden, I made the mistake of leaving all the little late sunscaled maters out there and yard roaches came in herds. Yuck.

My dog damaged a few plants and harvested over a dozen greenies defending them from birds and grasshoppers. She also dug a deep hole seeking cool earth under some of the tomato plants.

Through all this 50 some plants produced over 200 pounds of tomatoes. Nearly that much was culled, sigh. Half of the production came from 8 robust Celebrity plants. If only they tasted better. A dozen Better Boys and three Champions pushed 60-70 pounds of production and some are still healthy, looking at a fall crop. 5 cherry varieties make up most of the remaining harvest, with poor production from a list of about 15 more varieties, most started too late to judge harshly.

Lots of learning experiences.

ground hogs
squirrels
coons
possum
deer
birds
rabbits
fruitworms
septoria
early blight
frequent heavy rains (soggy roots)
one bought of hail
and people who insist Green Doctors isn't all that bad

Des Moines, Iowa.

Powdery Mildew then Early Blight. The sun/heat didn't come out until recently. One thing that I loved when reading about these two conditions were people saying don't water the leaves .. yeah okay I will tell the rain to rain everywhere else in my garden but not my tomatoes. Oh well. I haven't found anything to help with these two problems. People say circulation and that might help. I pulled leaves, sprayed with kelp, baking soda, and then copper. Finally I said the heck with it, pulled off all the tomatoes fried the green ones and am going to throw all of the Romas away. The Romas sit and develop this nasty looking bacterial growth along with not tasting good. I have just been trying to contain the area and treat it how ever possible. I have other tomato plants planted that I am hoping will produce some tasty fruit for me and my family. But, I will not buy tomatoes from Earl May next year, only seed for me. I have wrapped the diseased bushes in black plastic and sat them out in the sun, then I put them in a trash bag and throw them in the trash. I have also read that if you plant tomatoes the next year after having Early Blight to plant them at least 50 feet away from the original contamination zone. Oh, something else I will do next year to help protect my plants is putting newspaper around them with grass on the top, read that somewhere on this forum and think it is worth a shot.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Mojavebob has YARD ROACHES?! Are they as disgusting as they sound?

My plants are enjoying an unusually warm and dry summer, the best for tomatoes in my rather abbreviated history of growing them. That said, I did have a problem with moles and/or voles (which certainly qualify in my mind as yard roaches) digging tunnels under several plants and half-killing them in the process. Green Zebra, for example, has produced very few fruits, none of which are the usual size or state of ripeness.

Still and all, a great Year of the Mater!

Rain

* hornworms
* aphids
* yellowing leaves of entire plant (nutritional deficiency?)
* powdery mildew

The first three were just glancing blows, but the powdery mildew is threatening a knockout. I didn't want to do any kind of spray, even organic, but now I have to use Serenade fungicide to try to limit the damage.

• "Wait a minute, wait a minute. Mojavebob has YARD ROACHES?! Are they as disgusting as they sound?

They're not so bad with a little balsamic. The light brown ones are crunchy and make decent croutons. The chewy dark ones are better for sun drying.

Not fava beans and a fine Chianti?!

Rain

Blossom End Rot!!! =(

Sorry, it deserves bold print...lol...took over 50 of my San Marzano Organic maters & continued to take every single one that grew, so I unfortunately gave up on those 2 plants. :-\ With work, family & everything else, I have limited gardening time. I just couldn't make the time to fix it. Next year/season, I may try them again just to see if I can get the watering (or whatever caused the BER) on the correct plan.

Flea beetles
Stink bugs
Army worms

(aphids were scarce, didn't have any problems with them this year)

Army worms are never a problem for me. Haven't found a hornworm yet but I'm waiting...

Flea beetles did the most damage, with stink bugs coming in second causing cloudy spot on some of the fruit.

I now am seeing suspicious foliar lesions, which I hope is nothing serious. I hope I didn't accidentally transmit Late Blight from the community garden 2 miles away to my own garden. Haven't seen fuzz on the lower surfaces of leaf lesions, but I will keep an eye out after the next rainfall.

This fall I'll burn every last bit of the tomato plants and I won't till the ground until after at least several good freezes. Just in case there is a presence of an unwanted disease.

Other than that, my tomatoes have been growing GREAT and especially the Black Cherries have been producing loads of fruit, considering the 4hr of sun they get. Only other problem is my lousy segmented, interconnected bamboo staking system which has collapsed more than once and now is supported on various angles by the addition of lots of extra bamboo poles...

TNVG - Sorry about your San Marzanos. Strangely I've only had 1 or 2 fruits this year out of all 15 plants that showed any BER. It's been a good year for me regarding BER but a bad one for flea beetles.

COLDEST July on record. 87 varieties, about 400 plants total, I think I'll be lucky to get a bushel of tomatos this year. The plants look EXACTLY like the looked in late June, with the exception of about a dozen 4th of July plants which actually are growing and getting some fruit. Tomatos don't like days in the 60's/70's and nights in the 40's when they know its summer and should be muggy. I think its those cold nights that are the real problem.

#1 - Summer not getting here until a few days ago. Cool nights make for low yield and slow growth. Overcast and rainy days don't help either.
#2 - Lack of ladybugs [probably due to the cool weather]
#3 - Aphids [see #2]
#4 - Underestimating how much water and nutrient solution I'd go through draining to waste with twelve plants on four rockwool slabs.

same as denninmi and shelbyguy, the coldest July on record

no rain

voles, mice, rabbits and grasshoppers with slugs following after...

Ya know, I live out here in the boonies because i love nature...i'm more than willing to share my crops..but why do they have to take a couple bites from EVERY damned ripe tomato they can reach and ruin them, leaving a beetle-and-slug filled sour mess for me to grab??

Just a bit of early blight here.

Drought, heat and wind are number one as I feel they contributed to several problems I'll list below
Insects especially the psyllids. The psyllids cause what they call the psyllids yellows.
Horn worms till I finally sprayed with BT
Early Blight
Septoria
Bacterial spot
Soil fungus.

Only one came on and hit hard at my fully grown plants( Beefsteak,Marmans,jet star,san marzano,MR Stripey,roma,SS100 early girl)

Late Blight
Beefsteak was a loss in a few hours everyone else I am plucking and spraying w/ milk to try and eek out the green toms to a point where they can ripen.
The lack of sun and the abundance of rain did not hurt them as much as I had feared. The SS100's in the Eartainer are 8 feet tall (from the top of the soil to the top of the plant) and loaded w/ green toms. Every one seemed well on the way to a bumper crop... not this UGGHHH...and i have to re soil all the Earttaienrs now.