gritz wrote:

hi, i need help; my tomato plants are just wiltting up and dying . it
starts with one plant and moves down the line .
i move things around in the garden . i have lost over 45 plants . friends
have told me it is a bacteria in the ground.
if so can i get it out ? another friend told me to bleach the soil? i hope
someone out there can help me .
friut less


Sounds like a bug. A bacteria in the ground would not likely be that mobile.

Pull up a couple of the dead ones and give us a post-mortem. Do they have
roots? Do they have puncture wounds on the stems? Do a google search for
"diseases of tomatoes" and see if any of the pictures you turn up match
what you are seeing.

Tell your friend with the bleach bottle to stay out of your garden if he
values his life as much as you do your garden.

If it truly is a disease you could use solarization to do a decent job of
sterilizing the soil over the rest of the summer. Do a google search on
'solarization' ... it's easy to do and more environmentally sound than any
of the alternatives I am aware of. And it beats the heck out of poisoning
the soil (and everything in it!) with bleach.

Bill