The first thing we noticed when we returned home from vacation is that our tomato plants were not looking so hot. The leaves were spotted brown and some of the stems were turning yellow. The cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen and there are a ton of them. However, the plants themselves look like they are dying.
What I think is happening is an infection of early tomato blight. This is caused by a fungus that lives in the soil. We are careful to only water at the base of the tomato plants because the leaves don’t like to get splashed with water and soil. The tomato blight spores can splash up onto the plant if soil is splattered with water. There is not much that can be done when heavy rain occurs. I think next year will try a red plastic mulch to try to prevent the soil splashing from rain.
So what do you do when early blight has taken hold?
I removed as many of the lower branches as I could from most of my tomato plants. Use scissors to cut the infected branches. Make sure not to touch the healthy part of the tomato plant with the infected branches as this is how it spreads. Once you have cut the infected stems make sure to discard them. Do not put infected tomato blight stems in the compost pile as the fungus spores will survive and you will have a problem next year.
Another thing that can help is using a fungicide on the infected tomato blight plants.
Have you had problems with tomato blight?
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