GardenBanter.co.uk - Tomato pesticides, anything better than Malathion?

On Aug 21, 11:05 am, Max Wright wrote:
In message , Omelet
writes

Me neither! But that black growth sounds suspiciously like blight -
which no amount of insecticide - or fungicide, for that matter - is
going to cure. If that's really what it is, there isn't much you can do
except remove affected leaves and fruit and hope it only spreads slowly.
However, since blight thrives in humid conditions you should probably
cut down on the spraying too.

I use Malathion rather stingily, it seems like what I'm applying is
very unlikely to exceed the maximum daily intake. I live in a rather
dry part of the county, but the ocean proximity does provide a lot of
humidity at night. I would reckon it varies from about 10% to 70%
over most day/nights.

I'm figuring on mixing soluble fertilizer with the Malathion
application. If you can't destroy a parasite, out grow it.

Like I said, this is my first attempt in 50 years to grow tomatos. In
May I put some Ace hybrids down, they seem to do OK, no blight, 6 oz
fruits, the bugs get maybe 25% of them. In June I put some
Beefmasters down, they're the ones with the blighted stems. 6 oz
fruits, mostly cracked. Tasty enough. Most of the web sites say
March is the time to put the seedlings out around here, and I expect
that's about right. Live and learn, hey! Cracked fruit seems to be
mostly blamed on uneven watering, which seems right enough to me.
It's hard to avoid. I got to work 12 hours a day three consecutive
days of the week, so the plants get little attention when I get home.
On my days off, it seems like a good idea to try to make up for the
previous inattention, and I give them more water over a longer
period.

For next year, I'm thinking about some kind of automatic watering
system that will flood the soil every hour or two. I got a fountain
pump that seems up to the job of raising 10 gallons per hour a foot or
two. Got a cheapo Home Depot timer that turns on and off every half
hour or whatever you set it for. Quite a bit more work to do, but
conceivable.

Interestingly, my best producer Ace this year I put on top of a
Strawberry pot. I had never seen or heard of a Strawberry pot before,
and the web site which caught my interest suggested putting a half
inch thick pipe through to the bottom. I did that in spades, put a
half dozen pipes down! These were perforated with 1/8" holes every
other inch or two, supposedly as I gathered so water might be added to
deep irrigate the plants. The other 10 or so apertures on the outside
of the Pot I filled with Strawberry plants from the Loew's. The
Strawberry seedlings produced a few berries and died. But the Ace
tomato on top thrived. After a couple weeks, I saw the unwisdom of
pouring water down the tubes; to irrigate the pot, one must soak the
entirety. I removed a few, leaving only three, I guess. The Ace
thrived, and continues to. I got several other Aces in other medium
which thrive, but not as productively. I reckon that the remaining
three tubes provide aeration to the soil and this accounts for the
greater prductivitey. I've sown some of the other apertures with
basil, others with peppers, it's kind of late in the year for that,
but it's California!