and I'm trying not to complain too loudly, because we really need the rain, but I have discovered that my tomatoes HATE rain...hoping next year we'll have a greenhouse we can grow them in, because this is ridiculous! The tomatoes have early blight...a fungus that attacks when there is too much rain. We had too much rain right after I set them out, ten days worth, in fact, and they were just snapping out of it, now more rain. There are only a few options for blight...early blight that is...late blight all you can do is pull them up and burn them far, far away from your garden. :(
The first option is the same as late blight, pull them up and burn them. With them so loaded with tomatoes that are ripening, I am opting for keeping them and trying to stymie the fungus with homemade remedies. The first is removing any blighted stems...they usually start appearing at the bottom of your plant as black spotted leaves, which then turn yellow, then the stem turns yellow, then they start drooping really bad and turning black. YUCK! So cut them all off, and cut off any that are too close to the ground, being careful not to touch healthy limbs & leaves. Throw these far, far away, or burn them...do not compost!
Then mix up a solution of 1 heaping tbsp baking soda, 2 1/2 tbsp veg or olive oil, mixed into a 1 gallon sprayer of water...and just before the water is up to the full level in your sprayer, a squirt of dish soap...I use Ivory. Put the sprayer top on, give the contents a good swish and then spray, spray, spray! Spray every inch, top to bottom, and the stems & soil, too. With as many tomatoes as I've got, I have to refill 4 times! UGH! Just treated them the day before yesterday, too, and then it rained again. It's a battle, but all those lovely tomatoes NEED to ripen!
Do NOT water with an overhead sprinkler for your tomatoes, they prefer soaker hoses, and this reduces the "splash" from rain hitting the soil and bouncing back to your tomatoes...spreading the fungus, which lives in the soil.
I read one person's comments about combating early blight...have healthy soil. Well, isn't that just kind of OBVIOUS? How do you get healthy soil? years and years and years of composting, amending, and turning of the soil. I'm only on year 3, and my first year was a drought. Kinda hard to get healthy soil in less than 3 years. Sorry for the rant, but when we're looking for NOW solutions, don't give us something that is years in the future. Sigh.......it's just being snooty.
Another suggestion is to add Epson salts to the soil around your tomatoes, which has magnesium in it, another mineral that tomatoes need which your soil may be lacking in...I have a big tub of it in my bathroom from Sam's Club. It didn't cost a whole lot, so I'm going to give it a try, too. If I weren't being so lazy right now, I'd go get it and tell you the directions, they're printed right on the container...but I am being lazy, so I'll leave that for another day, and see if they actually helped the blight problem or not.
Have a great day!
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