Annie's Granny to the Rescue!

She's done it again!  Annie's Granny read my tomato emergency post yesterday and took time out of her day to track down and link one of her pictures of pot-bound tomatoes and mentioned that hers looked like mine when that happened - she now cuts the bottoms completely out of her containers.  I was very excited when I read her comment because the one symptom of disease that my tomatoes lacked was any type of rotten looking interior tissue on the stems.  Could this be it?

Pot Surgery

Outside this morning, I felt my hand around inside the pot, it was fine at the top but the bottom 1/2 of the container felt like a solid mass.  After staring at the darn thing for awhile, I rummaged around in hubby's shed until I found the Dremel Tool.  After attempting to cut  away the bottom with this for about 15 minutes, I realized this wasn't going to work, the cut-off wheels kept zinging off and melting plastic was building up and slowing it down, ugh!  I ended up doing it the old fashioned way, with a utility knife!  I made sure all the soil had been loosened under the pots (ground) and broke up some of the root ball before setting them back down, bottomless, to do their thing.  

I now have 4 done, 6 to go!  These big square terra cotta colored plastic ones were pretty thin, but I don't know what to do about the paint buckets, there is no way I am using that Dremel tool on them, I may try actually transplant them into the ground or a bed somewhere since they are about 4 weeks younger than the big ones, and might take it better.


I certainly have my work cut out for me today - the heat index is in the mid 90's out there and humidity has me soaked, eyes burning with sweat doing this and I hope it pays off!  It looks like there was a bit of a drainage issue too, even with all the holes I had originally drilled, so if not now, the plants would have soon succumbed to being confined like that.  Only time will tell if I also have a disease, but for now I can rest easy knowing I did all I could...

THANKS, GRAN... YOU ARE ONE AWESOME AND HELPFUL LADY!

If I lived closer, I would serve you breakfast in your garden, and give you a day's hard labor while you sipped a mint julep and laughed at me...!

Breaking out the big guns...

While not on the same scale as BP's harm to the environment, I am still feeling pretty guilty about it.  This is the first year I have had a problem with my heirlooms, but when it rains, it pours! For the past 2 weeks, I have been watching my tomatoes grow like crazy, yet having some yellowing and dead branches and I just knew it was bigger than a heatwave or water issue.  After consulting so many ID guides my head is spinning, I have it narrowed down at least.  At first I had some wilt, but leaves were still bright green so I just cut the affected areas off.  Then I started having complete yellowing and browning with that classic dreaded "from the bottom up" symptom.  I have it narrowed down to Fusarium Wilt (really bad) or Bacterial Wilt (bad, but can be helped a bit).  None of the affected/dead tissue is showing those classic signs of necrotic vascular tissue when cut though.  I actually went to the store 2 weeks ago to buy this, but then backed out after reading the labels on everything.  Maybe it was emotional overload, guilt, I don't know, but I did try at first to do other things.  I have done the Baking Soda spray, the milk spray, etc. to no avail.  So yesterday I plunked down 7.99 for a bottle of copper spray "for organic gardening", ha!  So this is how my morning went, in 90 degree humid temps, I might add!

Get spray in holster (no, I don't really have a holster, yet...)

If you are weak, you might want to look away now - 

Cut off all affected tissue, this came from 4 different Heirlooms, a Brandywine, a True Black Brandywine, Yellow Pear, and Paul Robeson

I am completely humiliated at this point, since I am somewhat of an Heirloom Guru, LOL!  Good thing the neighbors don't know anything about anything :)

Bet you can guess what's happening next!

I have a few that only have a little damage, I sprayed them and left them where they were, just spaced further apart.  I have 3 Heirlooms that look completely unaffected, and are looking absolutely spectacular  so they got moved, QUICKLY!  Even though I would love to have spared them from the copper treatment, I used it as a preventative because I cannot lose any more heirlooms!  

One of the survivors is a Vorlon, and guess what the others are that look so good?  Those Unidentified Polish Heirlooms that were passed to me in a baggie from an elderly Master Gardener woman!  Handed down for generations, she hasn't known the exact name since her mother grew them, she just kept growing them to save the seed.  She lives where she cannot have a garden now and out of all the students in our class, she entrusted me with those 6 seeds, so you know how nervous I am about getting at least a few tomatoes for saving the seed!  Plus, I really want to be able to show up bearing a gift of those tomatoes for her!

Now, you may need a backpack to make the hike there, but they are far, far away from the others!  They make one of the ugly sheds a little easier on the eyes, too!  Haven't yet figured out how to haul the water there, LOL, maybe the old fashioned buckets on a yoke around my neck?  The neighbors probably wouldn't even be fazed at this point!

I'll know soon enough what it is:  if it's bacterial, the copper will take care of it, if it's Fusarium Wilt, the death and destruction will continue.  I will be mad if it's Fusarium Wilt since I used bought potting soil for all the containers, but at least there is a better chance of it not infecting the raised beds, since Tomato Alley was not near the beds.  I think I will be venturing more into the world of hybrids this weekend and actually buying some tomato plants, ack!  I find that over the years since I started canning and growing my own seedlings, I am too emotionally invested to lose my whole crop, so there is definitely a plus to growing some disease resistant varieties.  (can't believe I'm saying that!)

And the choir says, "AMEN, she finally gets it!"

Catching Up

Yippee!  Sailor/Farmer is back home again (for about a month) !  Even though he wasn't here to orchestrate a stress-free Mother's Day for me, we managed to have a good time anyways.  I took the kids and packed a picnic lunch and we headed to the beach for a couple of hours.  Without the husband to tell them how to act on Mother's Day, I had to improvise a bit.  When they started acting up and getting whiny I explained to them that they HAVE to act good on Mother's Day and when I was asked "why, Mommy?" I pulled out the big guns and told them that Santa watches them very carefully on this particular day!

While Charlie missed alot while he was gone, he managed to get here in time for the first peas being harvested from the garden.  Not a ton, but enough for dinner that night.

No time for rest, though...I am going through my first traumatic gardening event, and it's with my tomatoes!  Yes, the heirloom tomatoes I nurtured from seed for the last half of winter, and then GAVE AWAY the surplus that I didn't use...(note to self!).  I will give you the horrid details and then let you see for yourself.  There are 3 new raised beds this year, filled with delivered compost that hold ALL of my tomatoes.  They were planted about a month ago, and seem to be frozen in time.  They have not grown, but are not wilted, either.  The leaves started becoming a dark green, then yellow mottling that looked alot like sunburn.  I thought this was the case for awhile since the day after I planted them was the start of a week of mid 90's temps that lasted about 6 days that caught everyone around here by surprise.  They never seemed to recover.  The past few days shows mottling, the undersides of the leaves has deep accentuated veining.  I am about ready to pull them and take one to the extension office, but am not hopeful, since I have read a ton of tech manuals and disease id's and know about as much as they do at this point!  I freaked out over tomato mosaic virus, the worst, but know that it is rare and they were not exposed to tobacco contamination unless the virus was in the compost that was delivered (this virus lives in the soil for 10 years, yikes!)  I have also seen some pics that sort of resemble mine that describe a phosphorous or manganese deficiency, but I believe this is unlikely since I have been using seaweed/fish emulsion and top dressing with my own compost and all my other beds are really healthy.  Anyways, any ideas???  I know I should probably just rip them out and start over before whatever it is spreads, but it's so hard to do!  Here's the evidence...

One of the Brandywines:

Close-Up of Brandywine leaf:

The Black Krims and Black Truffles in the next bed are starting to show signs as well:

Pic showing tomato size after being in ground for over a month:
I should mention that the 2 extras I had that I planted in my old beds are doing well and are getting huge, and the ones I gave away to friends are doing great.  Is it possible there was something contaminating the fill for the beds I had delivered???  I hate to think of having to remove all the fill and dispose of it.  I guess if you garden long enough, something is bound to happen.  I may laugh about it one day, BUT NOT TODAY!