I saw this thread earlier but needed to go downtown and didn't have time to answer. Dawn covered most of what I was going to say.I was grown up raisings NM chilie peppers and jalapenos. Like I've stated several times okra and most hot peppers I've grown are warm weather plants. And when either hardened off outside or planted outside too early will just set there. Yes they do and will get stunted. Some varieties are worse than others. Bell peppers are more cold tolerant but have always got treated like hot peppers around me and the old truck gardeners I was around in NM. Some of them would set the bell peppers out first as it gave them something to do before it got warm enough for the chilies. Most of mine have always came out of it but it can take a while. If they don't grow any after 7-10 days of hot temps then in my opinion they are severely stunted. Some of mine have grown slow this year due to the roller coaster temps. Some at work planted the first two weeks of May and have been asking me why they weren't growing. But most grew some last week when we had the 90 degree days. And after gardening in some fashion for over 40 years every year I realize I know less than I thought I did. Number one Mother Nature can humble you faster than anything else. Remember to have fun and enjoy it and like and old farmer always told me. It is never really as good as you think when things are going really good and never as bad as you think when things are going really bad. You will have years to brag about but if you do remember you will have years that you never care to see again. Just learn everyday as that is what we all do no matter how long we have been at this hobby. Jay

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

Last year I got blight which permeated and destroyed my garden. Tiny brown spots on the leaves, massive curling and wilting, then yellowing and dying of plants. It got out of control before I knew what it was. This year, I have been spraying with Daconil, but after a two week vacation with no spraying, I saw it starting again on my plants. Many are curling, spots are appearing. I am spraying and cutting off leaves like mad, but I fear it may still be a problem. Two questions: is the curling a preliminary stage of blight, or something different? And second, will my garden ever be rid of this disease? I can't rotate. Let's back up here and try to determine what the specific problem is. I take it you're in the western part of NYS and that's inportant to know. Spots on the leaves usually indicate a foliage infection, either baterial or fungal, and Daconil is of no use if it's bacterial in origin. Wilting is not a symptom seen with foliage infections. In our area the systemic diseases that cause wilting are not all that common and if you have new soil in the raised beds then that makes that diagnosis quite remote. Is this the first year with the new soil or if not, did you see the same problems last year in the same spot? No, curled leaves are not necessarily a prelude to either Foliage diseases or systemic diseases. Since all NEW folaige diseases are ariborne, replacing soil can't prevent them. So lets go step by step and let me ask you to indicate what you see as the major problem, the wilting or the foliage disease? Blight is a general word and deosn't refer to any one specific disease. If you could be more specific about the wilting as opposed to the spots on the leaves that would be great. How big are the spots, what shape, what color, any concentric circles inside the spots and any yellow halos aroubd the spots when they appear on green leaves. I know, lots of questions here, but wilting and systemic diseases are not common where we live and foliage diseases are, but if you have both it's going to take some time to make sense of this, if we can. Carolyn

I work 40 hrs in one hospital and 20 in another. My husband was in a 3rd one for 2 days this week. I have really paid attention to the hand hygiene this week!! At hospital #1, I was on a Infection Control committee doing a special mission last year, secretly observing and documenting different departments and their habits. I found: Nurses starting IV's w/o gloves routinely in ER. Floor staff were much better. At hosp #2 (VA) the nursing, dietary & houskeeping staff never neglect to wear gloves, and always use alcohol foam. Their policy is "Foam in, foam out" each room, and each patient is swabbed for MRSA at each visit, transfer from unit and discharge. Our infection control policy states that the alcohol foam is the most effective disinfectant EXCEPT for C-Diff infections, which requires soap and water. At hosp #1 I process micro reports and am amazed at the prevelance of MRSA in the community. Most are cultures from college students, children, toddlers and adults on the "outside". Approximatly 50% of the positive staph cultures were MRSA. Makes you think twice about taking antibiotics for everything, huh! At the hospital w/ DH this week, I observed all personel using the foam habitually, even the person who came in and did not even touch him or anything else in room! The wearing of gloves is intended for the safety of the healthcare worker, those gloves are not sterile, therefore not anything more than a barrier to protect the worker. I do get antsy seeing the IV's started without them, from both sides of the situation!