Thanks, Dave. I attached a link to the other post. I seem to have some replies now. You hit the nail on the head - I'm thinking I've either overfed them, or neglected something. The peppers showed the yellowish rims on the leaves before I ever touched them with a fertilizer, and I've never applied fertilizer during the heat of the day. I'm in North Florida and our tomato planting season was to get them in the ground NLT 9/1. I ended up getting them in the ground about a week before that. The peppers have been in the ground since 8/13 or so, and were planted from seeds saved from a container pepper with no deisease. The rest planted on schedule according to the UF planting guide site. I read that Neem was anti-fungal, and thought the yellow spots could be some infection in the plants, and therefore the spraying would help keep it under control. Could the compost tea have burned them? I don't think I have seen any additional effects after spraying the tea, other than them getting taller. Should I scrap the pepper plants, and plant beets or carrots, and cut off the lower yellowing tomato branches? Thank you SO MUCH Dave! I wish you had a TV show! Could the compost tea Here is a link that might be useful: Other post with Pics

Thanks for your continuing suggestions! A couple of weeks ago, my Tomato plants' leaves started to change their color and become a bit brownish. I was really worried that the mild hale we had one night (roughly a week after they were planted) might have caused blight. I took a couple of samples (one bad looking old leaf and another newly growing one) to a local farming store (OC Farm Supplies in Anaheim, CA). The guy there was so patient and cooperative, he told me that he can't see any kind of disease with it and felt I might be watering them too much. Relieved, I came home and cut down on my watering routine of every other day to twice a week. It's been a week since and my plants are looking good already. Additionally, I went to the beach early Sunday morning and collected a couple of buckets full of Kelp. I soaked them in a big 13 gallon bin by filling it with water for about 12 hours. I took the thick juicy water out and added one part of this juice to an equal part of water and gave them to all my plants. There was enough left for me to give to my trees as well. This juice is THICK. Afterwards, I took out small chunks of this Kelp and laid it around my plants and covered them up with aged horse manure compost (which could double up as mulch, too). I am planning to repeat this process once a month throughout the growing season. From what I read, this thing is full of nutrients, so I am hoping this will help my plants to have enough of N-P-K. I bought Dr.Earth's Tomato, Vegetable & Herb Fertilizer (5-7-3) but haven't fed them any of it yet. If I continue feeding them Kelp juice every other week, would that be enough or should I still be fertilizing more? I want to keep away from any store bought feed (like Dr.Earth's), if I can. Your expert advise will be grately apprecaited. Thanks, Telugu Raithu

You don't say what you plan to grow. Perhaps vegetables in rasied beds? Generally, I would ease myself into the new environment by having a reasonably sized garden at first with some soil ammendment. This would allow you to do some gardening while getting to know the local gardening community and the local methods. I am a frugal gardener and the thought of spending hundreds or perhaps thousands of dollars on raised beds and soil ammendments does not fit with my idea of gardening. I have some raised beds but those were made from salvaged lumber. Doing a little at a time is not a bad idea. It seems that in our "make over age" everything has to be done at once to look picture perfect. I do all my gardening with hand tools which includes a garden fork, a shovel and a crow bar. A little at a time gets the job done and saves my back.

I suppose I will have to be the first to bear the bad news.... Termites WILL eat some of your vegetable plants... The first year that I built my garden and raised beds, I planted broccoli. When they were just forming the broccoli heads, one or two fell over in the dirt. I investigated them to find out what made that happen. There were tunnels IN and through the stem! The termites had hollowed out the stem, and it had just crumpled in half. I pulled out the affected plants and saw the little rice-sized creepers scurrying away. Each day, a couple more broccoli plants crumpled over until the little buttholes had decimated every last one. Not to mention that now year 4 of growing, one of my raised beds (which sound like the same ones you (OP) built) is almost to the point of being unusable.