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Old 18-07-2005, 01:11 PM
tomatolord
 
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yup ya got some type of blight -

These blights are soil born diseases -

To do this year -
You can let the green tomatos ripen on the vine - the blight does not affect
the fruit
If you pick the green fruit put a few into paper bags not the windowsill -
the fruit gives of a gas that will ripen them quicker - DO NOT put in fridge
Pick the leaves that are yellow and dying and remove them from the garden DO
NOT compost
The plant will die there is nothing to do to reverse the disease

go buy some more plants to get a fall crop going.

Next year.....

Either plant your tomatos in a different part of the garden - including non
potato areas
or
solarize the soil - white plastic over the garden for 6 months to kill the
diseases
or
Plant disease resistant plants - remember they are resistant so they may
still get blights
or
Do what I do and put a layer of leaf mulch down - about 3 inches DO NOT till
in - and plant directly into the leaf mulch - I plant in the same spot each
year and do not plant disease resistant plants and mine are just fine.

Also very very important do NOT overhead water - water only the roots -
these diseases are in the soil so when water splashes onto the plant it
transfers the disease from the soil to the leaves and tomatos do not like
wet leaves.

With my leaf mulch system even if it does rain you are splashing "new" soil
onto the plants the diseases are buried 3 inches down -

remember paper bags for the green tomatos - you may want to leave a few out
of the bars or they will all ripen at once in the bags

Good luck

tomatolord


"vms" wrote in message news:fsZBe.94$N91.79@trnddc08...
I have about eight tomato plants with lots of green tomatoes hanging off
them. But over past two weeks, most of their leaves are turning yellow with
dark spots on them. These yellow leaves eventually dry out. This is
spreading from bottom up and seems to resemble Fusarium Wilt disease from
what I have read. I was not able to find any remedy though.

I have about given up on the plants. Don't see much of a point spraying
something for this few a plants. As a last resort, I thought I would run
the problem by you folks.

If I cannot salvage the plants, I welcome suggestions for what I can do
with the 20 or more green tomatoes.

Thanks.

\vms