Hello from Maryland, finally someplace i can register!

[jbrukardt]

After trying to get onto tomatoville for 8 years.... i found a link to this place. It looks great

I love tomatoes, but am a constant battler of blight, septoria leaf spot, and anthracnose that makes it a very frustrating endeavor year after year. I tend to try to use organic methods (tea tree oil, copper in moderate doses, serenade, actinovate), and have made slow progress. At least my plants stay alive until tomato production now. In previous years they would die before I got a single green tomato.

The biggest win for me so far was going with resistant varieties (Mountain Magic, Stellar, Iron Lady), but unfortunately while those seem to beat the blight, anthracnose has ruined me this year and I got about 15 pounds out of 18 plants. I would call the Mountain Magic successful, but not the others.

[Whwoz]

Welcome to the junction from Down Under, plenty on here closer to you have battled those problems and are better suit to offering advice.

[KathyDC]

Hi from MD, close to the DC line. You'll find many people from Tomatoville also participate here. Welcome!

Also regularly battle blight and other fungus bugs, though I have yet to see anthracnose here. I have found that a combination of: Copper+sticker-spreader, Revitalize (similar to Serenade), and sometimes Mancozeb or Daconil goes a long way. Also I maintain an aggressive fertilization schedule that I think helps plants ride out disease stress.

[zeuspaul]

Welcome. This is basically the same crowd. It took me a little while to find it too.

[jbrukardt]

Hi from MD, close to the DC line. You'll find many people from Tomatoville also participate here. Welcome!

Also regularly battle blight and other fungus bugs, though I have yet to see anthracnose here. I have found that a combination of: Copper+sticker-spreader, Revitalize (similar to Serenade), and sometimes Mancozeb or Daconil goes a long way. Also I maintain an aggressive fertilization schedule that I think helps plants ride out disease stress.

Next year im going to try bio-sulphur, but after that im either done with everything except mountain magic which is a shame cause the flavor is a little weak, or im going to end up hugging less trees and using daconil

[pepperhead212]

Welcome to the forum!

I just tried Mountaineer Pride this year, and have had good luck with no blight or septoria leaf spot, and last year I didn't have a single variety w/o septoria, due to the nonstop rain, up to mid July. It wasn't quite as flavorful as some of the other varieties, probably because there us less juice, but it is still producing, and the only one w/o septoria. This year, weather was reverse, with little rain early, so a lot of them produced early, w/o disease, but eventually, the fungus took over! I do a weekly prophylactic spray of potassium bicarbonate, but even that doesn't help, when rain and humidity are almost constant. So I know your pain.

[Tormahto]

Welcome to the forum. 8 years of waiting! May you find tomato varieties that are as resilient as you are.

[worth1]

Welcome.

[MissS]

Well Welcome to the Junction. You have the patience of a saint. 8 years of waiting is ridiculous and most of us have moved over here now so your w a i t is over. Glad that you found us.

[eyegrotom]

Welcome to the Junction

[Amateurinawe]

Welcome , hope you have a great time here. I'm new too but there are some super members here and very knowledgeable and helpful. Enjoy !

[goodloe]

Welcome from Mississippi, glad you found us!

[Shule]

Welcome to TomatoJunction!

[KathyDC]

Hi from MD, close to the DC line. You'll find many people from Tomatoville also participate here. Welcome!

Also regularly battle blight and other fungus bugs, though I have yet to see anthracnose here. I have found that a combination of: Copper+sticker-spreader, Revitalize (similar to Serenade), and sometimes Mancozeb or Daconil goes a long way. Also I maintain an aggressive fertilization schedule that I think helps plants ride out disease stress.

Next year im going to try bio-sulphur, but after that im either done with everything except mountain magic which is a shame cause the flavor is a little weak, or im going to end up hugging less trees and using daconil

If you don't mind spraying with copper+a sticker spreader like Turbo, and Revitalize (or Serenade) those can go a long way. I have only sprayed twice with Daconil this season. The copper+sticker spreader is key, though. The Turbo will make the copper much more effective than just a copper spray alone.

[farmersteve]

After trying to get onto tomatoville for 8 years.... i found a link to this place. It looks great

I love tomatoes, but am a constant battler of blight, septoria leaf spot, and anthracnose that makes it a very frustrating endeavor year after year. I tend to try to use organic methods (tea tree oil, copper in moderate doses, serenade, actinovate), and have made slow progress. At least my plants stay alive until tomato production now. In previous years they would die before I got a single green tomato.

The biggest win for me so far was going with resistant varieties (Mountain Magic, Stellar, Iron Lady), but unfortunately while those seem to beat the blight, anthracnose has ruined me this year and I got about 15 pounds out of 18 plants. I would call the Mountain Magic successful, but not the others.

Welcome! I had the same problem with Tomatoville. I think my wait was like 3 years though. I kept applying and couldn't figure out what was going on and gave up. Then did a search and found a discussion somewhere detailing the problems and a link here.

I grew up in Columbia, MD and went to Univ. of MD, but moved to the Seattle area a long time ago. I feel for your disease problem but fortunately we don't have many out here. Our biggest problem is heat. This year I am still anxiously waiting for the crop to finally turn and it looks like next week will be it with temperatures in the 80s which is rare in September but I'll take it! Last year we were harvesting a month earlier...

[GoDawgs]

Welcome to the Junction from the sunny South land!

[seasyde]

Welcome from a former Marylander!

[Sue_CT]

Welcome to the Junction! I also battle many of those diseases. You don't say if you are growing organically or not, which makes a difference, but hopefully you will be able to get some ideas here on how to manage it a bit more. My problem is with consistency. Since I am not retired, I work, lol. Unlike when I was younger, though, I am beat when I get home and rarely get out to water or spray or whatever until my days off. Regular monitoring and dealing with anything that starts popping up helps a lot. So does proper watering and fertilizing so the plants are nice and healthy to start with in my garden. Then there is the weather. Not much you can do about that. So all we can do is manage the other things better.

Glad to have you with us!

[tomike]

Welcome, I'm from Canada....

[WoodSprite]

Welcome from Pennsylvania. I was having trouble with septoria leaf spot since we moved to this house but not this year. This year I put my mulch on thicker than the "barely there" layer I was using and it has helped greatly. Of my 11 tomato plants, only 1 is starting to show signs of it and that was just recently, probably because I removed a plant next to it and probably got the fungus spores on it when doing that. So, I'd suggest trying mulch. It keeps the fungus in the soil that causes it from splashing up onto the soil during rain/irrigation.