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Hi Dan, love your show. I have had a garden every spring/summer for several years and it always produces enough tomatoes to put up 24-36 quarts every year in addition to lots of salsa. This year I'm having a problem with a couple of my tomato plants and one cucumber plant. They are dying suddenly after thriving at first.
In the top photo, there is damage at the base - it looks rotted and has a fuzzy white coating. In the bottom photo, the plant in the lower left corner is the current plant being affected.
It seems to be random in that it affects a plant on one side of the garden and then one all the way on the other side of the garden - so far, no two together.
The rest of the plants are thriving and are already starting to produce fruit. My routine is to mulch the beds with leaves from the fall and then grass clippings to keep the weeds down. I also use Miracle-Gro every two weeks and I spray insecticide about once a month, usually malathion, to control whiteflies and aphids on a few peppers.
- Mike D.
This looks like Southern blight, a fungal disease. There is nothing to be done for the infected plants. Remove those plants and the soil and mulch around them immediately and dispose of them. Do not plant back into that spot this season. Cross your fingers it does not spread throughout your tomato planting.
To protect the remaining uninfected tomatoes, aluminum foil wrapped around the lower part of the stem (from just below the soil line to approximately 2 inches above the soil) provides a physical barrier that prevents the pathogen from reaching the plant.
Do not plant tomatoes back into that area next year. Below are links to online publications and an article covering Southern blight:
Louisiana Plant Pathology: Southern Blight
Tomato Southern Blight
Disease Management in Home Vegetable Gardens
Dan Gill
Consumer Horticulture Specialist
