Hello from Tennessee

[wannabgardner]

Just introducing myself. I’m hoping to learn a lot from seasoned gardeners. I’m a native Tennessean and spent many hours in the garden with my grandparents. I’ve had my own garden now for about 15 years but I struggle with tomatoes which are my favorite summer veggie. I grow in the middle portion of the state on the western edge of the Cumberland Plateau. Summers are hot and humid here. Consistent rain is unpredictable. This one has been very dry for weeks but has now turned rainy. Every year I try something different to improve, but I ALWAYS struggle with blight! This year I’m growing celebrity, black Krim, holy land, Mary Huddleston, and black brandy wine. Honestly, the black brandy has had the most beautiful foliage with the least disease although the tomato is smaller than I expected. It does taste very good. Any advice would be appreciated!!

[Seven Bends]

Welcome from Virginia! We have a similar climate and struggle with Early Blight every year; it's just a given, shows up seemingly overnight like clockwork around the end of June/beginning of July. If you feel like posting what you're already doing to combat it, maybe someone here will have useful suggestions for you. Good luck with your garden this year!

[FatBeeFarm]

Hi! Welcome to the forums from the White Mountains of New Hampshire. For early blight I try to get ahead of it by spraying copper fungicide before it shows up. It will still show up, but I feel like it buys me a little time. I also trim all the bottom leaves off, at least 18 inches above the ground, so no rain can splash up on the plant. I also put down fresh mulch, something that won't have blight in it (I'm using rice hulls this year), in a layer an inch or two thick all around my tomatoes. Actually all around every vegetable. Then, when blight does finally show up, I prune diseased leaves off, trying to slow it from spreading like wild fire. I'm not sure you can actually win in the end, but you can put up a good fight for awhile

[pepperhead212]

Welcome to the forum!

Something I start, early on every year, as a prophylactic for tomatoes (and some other plants), is potassium bicarbonate, which I spray in combination with Surround, to keep bugs off, which I spray on all of them once a week (if no rain, I usually just spray new growth), and as soon as cherries start setting fruits, I stop with those - the Surround is a pain to remove from the cherries! So those I use just the potassium bicarbonate, and alternate that with H2O2 solution - 1 c 3% to a gallon of water. That solution kills a lot of things, but disappears quickly, and I buy quarts of it in the dollar stores. Some varieties still come down with something, but later on, and those few varieties that get bad diseases I pull early - had only 3 I had to do this with this year, out of 22 varieties, which is probably a record!

Good luck with the tomatoes, and everything else in the garden!

[AKgardener]

Welcome from Alaska

[Gardadore]

Welcome from NE PA!

[Whwoz]

Welcome to the Junction from Down Under @wannabgardner

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

Welcome from America's Dairyland!

The Gotch

[MissS]

Welcome to the Junction. You have gotten some very good advice here already. There isn't more that I can add to that.

[wannabgardner]

Welcome to the forum!

Something I start, early on every year, as a prophylactic for tomatoes (and some other plants), is potassium bicarbonate, which I spray in combination with Surround, to keep bugs off, which I spray on all of them once a week (if no rain, I usually just spray new growth), and as soon as cherries start setting fruits, I stop with those - the Surround is a pain to remove from the cherries! So those I use just the potassium bicarbonate, and alternate that with H2O2 solution - 1 c 3% to a gallon of water. That solution kills a lot of things, but disappears quickly, and I buy quarts of it in the dollar stores. Some varieties still come down with something, but later on, and those few varieties that get bad diseases I pull early - had only 3 I had to do this with this year, out of 22 varieties, which is probably a record!

Good luck with the tomatoes, and everything else in the garden!

Thanks for the advice! This year I grew my tomatoes in protein tubs left over from protein supplement we give the cows. They probably hold 20 gallons. I filled each with sifted garden soil, mushroom compost and rotten wood mulch. I mulch each pot with thick layer of pine straw and sprayed every couple of weeks with a mixture of water, dish soap and baking soda. Bottom leaves still turn brown and drop especially now that’s it’s turned rainy. Does it every year no matter what I do. But I had hardly any pests. I found a few stink bugs and a couple of hornworms. That’s it.

[Ken4230]

I'm kind of new also and grew up in my grandparents garden. I have basically the same situation you have. Only thing I can tell you is to research the Hybrids that are supposedly resistant to Early Blight or even the most disease resistant Hybrids and grow only those. Here I am recommending this while growing almost no Hybrids. The heirlooms I grow (some of these I have grown for more than 30 years) have acclimated to my conditions.

Welcome from Western Kentucky, you will absolutely love it here.

[PlainJane]

Welcome!
I try to time my peak tomato season to fit as much as I can before it turns really nasty. No avoiding disease in hot humid Florida come June or so.
Same as other folks - prune for good airflow, remove bottom foliage, pull plants that turn out to be disease magnets, keep ahead of the bugs.

[bower]

Welcome from the North Atlantic! Even here we are getting more of the blight weather, and it seems unstoppable.
I am trying some hybrids and OP's that were bred for disease resistance this year. Will let you know if there are any superstars.

[Seven Bends]

@wannabgardner, have you tried spraying with copper, as @FatBeeFarm suggested? Since you're already spraying, that would be your best bet. It will be more effective against early blight than what you're spraying with now. It won't do you any good against insect pests, so you may want to alternate (or possibly they can be combined in the tank, not sure - check the label). Copper is approved for organic growing. If you're not organic, Daconil is the best option. The key with both copper and Daconil is they have to be applied before the symptoms appear; they're preventatives, not cures. So if you already have symptoms on your lower leaves, just spray the upper part of your plant and keep the new growth sprayed regularly.

Besides all the other things people have mentioned, I've found it helps to keep the plants well-fertilized so they grow fast and can keep ahead of the blight.

There's been a big difference in extent of disease from variety to variety in my garden this year. I'll try to remember to post results.

Remember that, to some extent, brown and dying leaves on the bottom of tomato plants is normal -- they often shed those lower leaves as they grow -- when those leaves are no longer needed, are too shaded, or the plant doesn't have enough nutrition to support all the leaves.

[GoDawgs]

Welcome, Volunteer from Dawg Land! I think you'll find lots of information here and a bunch of good people. Good to have you aboard.

[karstopography]

A thick barrier covering the soil so that when the rain comes there won’t be any soil particles splashing up on the tomato foliage. I use a thick layer of leaves, shed live oak primarily, along with pine and cypress needles. Anyway, not having the soil splash up on the leaves during rain events is a big help to tamp down the blights. Live oaks here conveniently discard their leaves at the exact time I transplant my tomatoes into the garden. I rake them up off the grass and spread as thick as layer as I can in my cedar framed 14” raised bed boxes, generally about 5-6”.

My favorite two soil amendments for tomatoes are earthworm castings and cottonburr compost. Cottonburr compost ought to be available in Tennessee. Earthworm castings are available everywhere. There’s a noticeable difference with using a couple of handfuls of earthworm castings around and in the transplanting hole. I also mix in some castings in the boxes when I do my pre transplant prep a week or two before transplanting. I also believe in working in as much brassica and mustard foliage into the soil not too long before prepping the beds. I grow brassicas and mustards in the fall and winter for food crops and also as a cover crop and soil builder. There’s research that suggests compounds in these plants help fight fungal/bacterial pathogens and root pests like nematodes residing in the soil.

Coastal Texas is certainly hot and humid, but I only grew open pollination non-hybrid tomatoes this season and they didn’t have any real issues with foliar diseases until Hurricane Beryl blew them over. As far as I can tell, I do keep records of pounds of tomatoes per plant, heirlooms do just as well, are as potentially as healthy as hybrids, and have just as much production potential as hybrids if given enough time and if protected from disease through careful soil management of fertility and soil structure and preventing soil coming in contact with the foliage. Hard rain pounding on exposed soil makes an aerosol of soil and water and that soil laden, disease laden aerosol can drift and rise well above grade or ground level. I don’t mulch a couple of flower and herb beds and after a hard rain, there’s soil particles way up on the flower and herb foliage. How did it get there? It’s the aerosol and splash formed by pounding rain on exposed soil that drifted up and over the foliage.

Good, rich, fluffy, well composted organic matter laden soil with constant adequate nutrients and something, some sort of barrier to ensure near zero chance of soil being transported to the tomato foliage are I believe key to keeping the tomato foliage largely disease free in areas with lots of humidity and warmth.

Tomatoes need a lot and continuous inputs of nitrogen and especially potassium when they are flowering and beginning to set fruit. I don’t worry too much about adding additional phosphorus because that’s done and accomplished when I set up the beds just prior to transplanting. But, I generally side dress nitrogen and potassium roughly every three weeks during the flowering and fruiting stage starting about three months after the tomato seeds germinate.

I have zero plans to grow hybrid tomatoes ever again so long the foliar diseases are kept in check. I plan on following these horticultural practices I’m practicing until they don’t work and hopefully that day won’t ever come. Never say never and I could be just getting lucky, but there doesn’t seem to be any harm or great expense by doing the things I like to do trying to keep the tomatoes healthy and delicious.

[TX-TomatoBug]

Hello @wannabgardner, welcome to TomatoJunction from Central Texas. Have traveled through Tennessee a number of times on the way to my birth state of KY. Beautiful country!

[worth1]

Hooooooowdeeeeee.

[AZGardener]

Welcome to the Junction!

[Shule]

@wannabgardner
Welcome to TomatoJunction! I know you've been here a while.