Disease and the Tomato Plant

Did you put your heart and soul into growing tomatoes only to have them wilt and die because of some crazy tomato plant disease this year? Did the tomato Blight or Blossom Rot kill your garden?

There are sooo many diseases that can attack your tomato plants that it’s mind boggling.   Here are a few of the most common tomato plant problems:  

Ø       Early Blight – caused by a soil born fungus and the culprit is excessive water and affects the foliage and the fruit.

Ø       Blossom Rot – is caused by a low concentration of calcium in the fruit

Ø       Late Blight – also caused by a fungus which manifests in moist soils and affects the foliage and the fruit.

Ø       Tomato Plant Yellow Leaves...I get a lot of mail about this one.

There are ways to help combat these diseases and the fall is absolutely the BEST time to do it.   If you are a serious gardener and want to produce your best Tomato crop ever, then you need to start conditioning your soil now.   The following are some great organic ways to get that soil ready:

Pull out all the dead plants and if diseased burn or bag up and throw away.
Till up the soil to get it ready for a thick layer of your home made compost or it's equivilent, i.e. Cow Manure, Store bought Fertilizer, etc.
Mix compost and a fertilizer low in nitrogen but high in superphosphate, such as 4-12-4 or 5-20-5, (for calcium) in a big 5 gallon bucket, add water to make a tea like mixture and spread mixture generously over the entire garden.
Cover entire garden area with a thick layer of your home made mulch. (Made of grass clippings, wood chips, coffee grounds, dead leaves etc.)  
 

This will not only start the conditioning process for next year but adding that layer of mulch will help keep that nutrient rich compost from running off during rainy days.  

I repeat the same process after the last freeze and right before I’m ready to put all my new seedlings in the ground but now I add Epsom Salts to the mixture.  This provides the soil with magnesium and sulfur that is a critical mineral for seed germination.  It is also vital to the production of chlorophyll, which plants us to transform sunlight into to food and will also help your plants to grow bushier, produce more flowers and improve their phosphorus and nitrogen uptake.  

One of my favorite Tomato disease Prevention techniques is to feed Seedlings with a Sulfur spray.  Sulfur is inexpensive, kills soil born and airborn Tomato Diseases adn get this...fertilizes your Tomato Plants with a nutritional shot in the arm at the same time.  I also like a copper based dust powder...available at Lowes and other Discounters.  Your Tomato Garden will love you for it.

It’s important to remember that if you had a problem with Blight to rotate your garden so that your tomato plants are not in the same place they were the previous season.   Blight is a soil born fungus that can live through the winter and your Blight nightmare will start all over again.  

By doing the above pre-season soil conditioning you are giving your garden the best chance at being as healthy and productive as it can be.  

Now sit back and relax and dream about all those mouth watering, big juicy tomatoes that your tomato plants will be producing this spring.

Tomato-lly yours,