Garden 2010

[glatt]

Originally Posted by glatt

We planted a garden yesterday. Decided to plant it in the front yard this year because of all the sun there. The soil here is terrible. All clay. So we mixed some bags of topsoil in with it.

I've got big hopes for this one. We got an automatic water timer so even when the mosquitoes are bad it will still get plenty of water. And it won't die when we take a vacation.

4 tomato plants, a packet of sunflower seeds, a bunch of basil, sage, dill, and a few other herbs I'm forgetting right now. Oh, and some other flowers too.

It took 3 hours yesterday afternoon, but through the magic of my new time lapse plantcam, you can watch us do it all in only a little over a minute.

The tomato plants are all wilting! I think maybe they got too much water. They had been doing amazing too. A couple small tomatoes were already on two of them.

[squirell nutkin]

too much water from watering and the tips of the leaves die. The cells burst from water. Too much water from rain and the fungus spores in the soil get splashed on the lower foliage and the fungus spreads.

If the leaves are normal looking, but wilted, you probably have this bad nematode or some sort of parasite that blocks the plants from taking up water. It basically eats up all the little root hairs until the plant is just unable to give itself water. If it looks ok in the am, but shitty after being in the hot sun, then it is probably those parasites. My book isn't nearby, but I'll look it up for you.

For now, just give it long, deep waterings. I'll check if there is a chemical or cultural solution. Did you buy the plants or start them? Sterilized potting soil to start?

http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.corne...omleafkey.html
http://blogs.cornell.edu/hort/2010/0...-blight-blues/

I might be confusing two plant diseases, follow the top link for diagnostic

[glatt]

Cool. Thanks for any information you can provide.

The things were looking freaking awesome just two days ago. Now they are wilted at the top. The top third of each plant (an early producing variety) is completely flopped over and wilted. No discoloration or cankers. The soil is plenty damp. I've been running a soaker hose for an hour a day in the morning, and we have also had a fair amount of rain lately. There's no way the soil is too dry, so I figured I was over watering.

Soil here is mostly clay, and I added a bunch of bags of "topsoil" I bought to mix in with the clay. The topsoil had a bit of green slime growing on it just under the plastic bag, but otherwise looked fine. It wasn't advertised as being sterile.

I bought potted plants, and they were pretty root bound when I planted them. I think that's the word. The roots had reached the inside of the pot and were all grown around a lot in a tight circle.

I was all psyched this year because my problem usually is that I never water enough, and I got this timer to control a soaker hose.

[squirell nutkin]

can you take a good photo of the plants? and they are wilted all day long, right? No changes throughout the day?

[glatt]

It's possible they are less wilted in the morning, but if they are, it's pretty negligible. They are definitely wilted in the morning too. I'll have to pay closer attention to the severity.

In the early afternoon, they look like this:

Here's a good overview of the wilt.


And this is a shot of the base of the plant. The leaves are turning yellow. I didn't notice that yesterday. It might be new. That dead branch is broken, so it's not dead as the result of the disease.


And this is a detail of some leaves with brown spots on them. Not dirt.

[glatt]

I was at the farmer's market this morning and bought two new tomato plants. If I dig these out and plant the two new ones, will they catch whatever these things have? Is the problem in the soil now?

[squirell nutkin]

Problem is and most likely always was in the soil. Get two new plants and in the meantime pot them in 5 gallon pails full of bagged mix, drill some decent drainage holes in the bottom. Grow them in that this year.

Did you check out the link with plant pathology photos? Which do you think your plant most closely represents?

If you want to risk planting them, put down plastic mulch. The mulch keeps the soil from splashing onto the leaves. That is usually the route of transmission.

I'll look at my books later tonight and see if I can give you a better answer.

Copper (sulfide? sulfate?) is often used for fungus.

[glatt]

The tomatoes are now clearly better looking in the morning and really wilted in the late afternoon.

And I got an e-mail from my wife this morning that there are little white bugs all over the plants. Just took a look at them, and the wilted ones are now covered in aphids. Good news is, now I have a subject for my "pest" picture in the treasure hunt thread.

[Undertoad]

Better than me all around: this has been yard work year instead of garden work year, and all that yard work left us neighbor-friendly but plant-free. The beds are full of weeds and there may be no time to rescue the year.

But there is dill. At least there is dill.

[squirell nutkin]

Glatt, that sounds like verticillium wilt. Sucks. The aphids are opportunistic, though they often appear on over fertilized plants. pull the plants and don't replant in that spot. I'd really consider growing them in 5 gallon pails, mulch them well so the soil doesn't splash on the leaves.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by squirell nutkin

Glatt, that sounds like verticillium wilt. Sucks. The aphids are opportunistic, though they often appear on over fertilized plants. pull the plants and don't replant in that spot. I'd really consider growing them in 5 gallon pails, mulch them well so the soil doesn't splash on the leaves.

I think you're right. It looks just like the picture. Thanks for all your help.

Well, that's too bad. This is a spot where we have had bad luck with other plants too. Shrubs. Everything we plant there dies. I thought that adding new topsoil and watering a lot would fix it, but I guess it's a dead zone.

[squirell nutkin]

take some soil samples to your local cooperative extension and have them test your soil. it might be a simple fix like pH or NPK.

Looking closer, you don't want to put plants up near your house anyway. bugs, moisture, bad times

[busterb]

Or buy plants that are resistance (sp) to wilt

[squirell nutkin]

Hey, Buster's back! How'd it go?

[kerosene]

Last year our gardening experience was a loss. We picked a bad place to put it and it sat in swampiness the whole time. this year, we have a huge garden, but we just planted it, because the weather was so cold until now. Yesterday I just picked up some 2-3 year old thornless raspberry plants. I doubt they will fruit this year, but still, they are pretty cool. I will post some pictures when I get around to it.