Jay, Our weather has been all over the place the last 6 weeks with very little consistency. Some nights it has dropped into the 60s and many nights it has dropped into the lower 70s. Walking out the door before sunrise to an air temperature of 84 was just pathetic. We usually have that kind of heat here at night in early August, not early July. I cancelled my plan to dehydrate the tomatoes today when the heat index hit 105 and the power went out. The power was only out a couple of minutes, but it caught my attention and made me decide to wait until tomorrow. I don't want to have an oven full of baking sheets with little dehydrating tomatoes on them and then have the power go out. It currently is 98 here with a heat index of 105, and we're in the "cooler" Red River Valley. Up in Ardmore and Madill, one of which is one county north and the other is one county northeast of us, they have hit 100 degrees and Ardmore's heat index is 106 and Madill's is 107. We're supposed to hit 103 here today but I keep hoping the cold front will send T-storms out ahead of it that will cool us down. I hope my mentioning the ripe tomatoes didn't hurt you too much! I am sure you'll have ripe ones before you know it. My harvest is peaking a month late--it usually starts in earnest the first week in June and this year it really started around July 1st. I think the harvest will be just as large as past years, assuming some disease does not suddenly strike, but over a shorter period. As long as we get tomatoes to eat, that's all I care about. Have you ever had trouble with the foundation of the garage wicking moisture away from the plants? Is that possible? I wonder too, if somewhere in the subsoil there might be a big crack and the water is seeping down into the ground through it. When our clay soil cracks, I could stand there with a hose running all day and the water would keep draining down....the crack would never "fill up". Our sandy soil hardly ever cracks, but our first drought year here I couldn't keep plants in it watered enough to keep them from dying. After a decade of soil improvement, that's not an issue any more though. I went and bought Daconil but haven't sprayed yet. I keep trying and can't get to it before the heat gets too bad and I have to come inside. This morning, I picked all the ripe fruit I could before I came in for brunch, and then intended to go back outside, pick the rest of the ripe ones, remove the diseased foliage, and then spray. Since it got so hot so fast, I didn't get it done, so maybe I can finish it this evening when the temps drop down to some reasonable temperature like 92 or something. When you lift those plants that are failing in that one hole, do you see any signs of root knot nematodes? Other than something that is strictly a soil drainage issue, nematodes are another possibility for a plant in sandy soil that is not thriving. Other than that possibility, I am stumped. The farmer's market will be such fun. If you get hooked on selling there, you'll "have to" build a greenhouse or high tunnel so you can plant early and have the first ripe fruit at the market every year! I am leaning towards building a high tunnel before next year. It wouldn't have to be really huge. I'd be happy if I could just plant 20 or 30 tomato plants really early and know they'd be protected from the colder nights and heavy rains. If we build a high tunnel, we'll put it on higher ground than the current veggie garden so that heavy rains aren't an issue. It is so miserably hot here that I brought the outside dogs in from the garage to cool off for a couple of hours, and the feral cat who hates all the other cats and starts fights with them is even inside. He's in Tim's weight room, though, so he can sleep and chill out and not have any "contact" with our other laid-back, mellow kitties. We're pretty much in a regular routine now where the house dogs go to the master bedroom to sleep on their dog beds all afternoon, the cats go to the guest room (because the outdoor dogs like to chase cats), Yellow Cat goes to the weight room and the outdoor dogs sleep downstairs in the living room, breakfast room or kitchen. The only animals still outside are the poultry! I am eagerly watching the radar for signs of cooling rain. I do have the sprinkler on right now, "watering" the chicken coop and fenced-in poultry run in an attempt to cool it down a bit for the 10-week old chickens. Dawn

I found the PA article interesting in that they mentioned it may be in the soil. This is the first I've heard it possible, unless they mean it overwintered on tubers or plant parts, though PA should have killing low temps. Usually only Early Blight can be soilborne and not Late Blight, I thought LB needs a living host.

That's why there should be a no kissing or cuddling rule in all cases. As for keeping them as pets in the house, it just shouldn't happen. They are farm animals. We respect our flock and they are very spoiled but when the handling is over everyone washes their hands. When you deal with farm animals on a daily basis it is important to be clean about it. I have had a farm for 20+ years and no one in our house has ever become sick from any of our animals. it is something that is totally preventable in every case and to me there is no excuse for it.

I'll second the Daconil. Another thing you might try if you'd rather not have Daconil in the house--and I can understand that although it really is pretty harmless even indoors (seriously, you can use it the day of harvest on many things)--is the following. Now a warning. Comparatively speaking, it's a harsh antifungal, it'll clear the deck of any fungus by shifting the pH on the leaf by quite a lot temporarily and dessicating the poor things. For PM, that's exactly what we want. This is harmless to you, your pets, insects, etc., however, and you almost certainly have it in your home and use it when baking. If you bake. I do not bake. Baking soda. The equivalent of 1 Tbsp in 1 gallon of water, plus 1 tsp of soap (also a fatty acid salt, dessicant when dry, and pH-shift toward alkaline). Spray on the plant, including the soil and pot where the PM is hanging out and has spores. Let dry for several hours, Rinse off with a gentle water spray at room temperature (you don't really need to rinse the soil). The recipe doubles and halves easily, and keeps, so if you make a quart, 1/2 tsp of baking soda plus about 1/4 tsp of soap (this is not an exact science).