I'm fairly certain that this fungi is pretty harmless. Not all fungi are bad. In fact, most are beneficial. The rainforests would not be as healthy as they are (not counting mankind's systematic destruction of it) if it weren't for fungi breaking down decaying organic matter and recycling it back into the soil for other plants to use. Many trees will form symbiotic relationships with fungi via their roots, benefitting both in the process. Another great example, is how orchids' seeds can only germinate in the wild if only they come into contact with a specific fungus. For the longest time, people couldn't get orchid seeds to germinate. That is, until someone discovered the symbiotic relationship between orchids and fungi. After that discovery, orchid breeding exploded all over the world, giving us literally hundreds of thousands of hybrids. Not to mention, driving the prices of orchids down significantly. Making it possible for anyone that wants to, to grow their own. That's what these fungi are doing in your soil, just breaking down the compost, or other decaying organic matter, into usable nutrients. I would just let them be (if any more mushrooms pop up). If it's not broke, don't fix it. Your plant seems to be very healthy. A few years ago, I hung up a Topsy Turvy strawberry planter (Which I absolutely love using). Well I guess the soil/compost mix I had used had caused quite a few of these same mushrooms to sprout from just about every opening. I just left them alone and my strawberries did just fine. I wasn't too concerned, because I was letting the strawberry plants get established and just pinched off any flower buds for the first year anyways. The mushrooms eventually went away on their own, and my plants grew a bunch of strawberries over the next couple of years. :)

Are you sure something's not eating the newspaper to make that scat? Isn't that a sports page scat I see next to the stem? Seriously, I'd stick a wire gently into the hole to see how far it goes and see if something is in there. tj

Spreading is not good news. I looked at pics of late blight on Google and did see some with minor damage that looks like your tomatoes. My experience was the stereotypical late blight blitzkrieg. In all likelihood, I infected the plants when I pinched growth tips at the end of the season without washing my hands first. The first day I noticed anything wrong, scattered leaves and branches were infected. The second day, half of each plant was dead, and many fruit had bad spots. The third day, the plants were completely dead. Fruit I'd picked on the first day mostly (maybe completely) developed bad spots; I threw them out. I did not pull the plants immediately. Volunteers came up in the same space the following year. I mulched well and had no disease. AFAIK, there is nothing you can do. But since I don't know very far at all on this issue -- 8^/ -- you need a better opinion than mine.

In warm climates like mine, many people leave the blooms on the bushes. Especially old types of roses will still keep blooming, but you will get rose hips along with the new flowers. In the wintertime bushes covered with hips are very pretty. My hybrid musks, which have clusters of tiny blooms, make clusters of tiny hips which are so great looking I use them in flower arrangements. Rose hips are full of Vit C. In WW II, in England where they were short on food and everything they usually imported (because the Germans were torpedoing all of the ships), the govt. called on English gardeners to collect their rose hips for the govt to use to make Vit C. Since in England EVERYONE (practically) is a gardener with roses, this worked great. Jackie