Anyone have expertise to offer?
One of my tomatoes was dying: droopy, turning yellow. It happened almost overnight. Upon investigation, the area around the root crown, just above the soil look gnawed away. Rabbits! We do have them everywhere. This was the first year I was growing tomatoes in my front yard. We got chicken wire and wrapped it around each tomato. The one with the damage seemed to be doing better. Really!
There were ants everywhere around its roots, too. So, that was my next villain. Vanja took the ants to NAIT to be identified. These ants do not eat plants. They are not invasive (ha!) and will not damage anything. I am a live and let live kind of person, but after nightmares of ants crawling all over me, I bought the white ant powder and doused them in it. OK. I went a little wild. It looked like winter hit here for a day or two. But, it was not poison and was a “green ant killer”. I know. I know.
Then, talking to my tomatoes in the back yard, counting their little blossoms, trimming the extra undergrowth, I cam across FOUR plants, all in a row, all the same kind, bought at the same place, with the same problem. The back yard has no rabbit access. There are no ants over there. I cried. These little tenderlings had big beautiful sunflower-like blossoms and we already sprouting tomatoes.
In to Google I went: stem rot or crown rot. Either way, I have identified the problem and nowhere could I find a solution. Will this contaminate the soil? I pulled the plants and laid them to rest. I do not take this lightly. I love my garden. I love tomatoes. I did learn that this is a virus that comes with the plant.
The stem gets very thin and fragile toward the soil. If you look carefully, you can see it. It is shockingly obvious when looking down on them and when touching the stems. It is not so clearly obvious in the photos.
Does anyone know if there was something I could have done to have nursed these plants back to health?
Is the soil now contaminated under them?
When I cannot find the answers through Google, I hope to find them from you!
That’s heartbreaking! I’m a gardner and I hate losing plants I’ve carefully tended. This year, for me, it is cabbages.
I can’t speak to this specific problem with tomatoes, but I’ve had a couple of really awful tomato harvests, due to weather and a black fungus sort of disease. This year, I have grown all of my own tomato starts (over 60) and pepper starts ( 30) from seed, using several different varieties of heirloom/organic seeds and indoor grow lights. Easier than I thought, and I won’t be importing any diseases or pests from the greenhouse this year, anyway…. So far, so good- they’re all flowering and some setting fruit already. I’ve planted them in containers and beds all over my yard, some in spots where diseased tomatoes were planted. One bed where it was really bad has only beans and root veggies this year. If the other spots where there was disease are ok for tomatoes this year, I’ll replant tomatoes in that bed next year.
Good advice, Sharon!
I am leaving the space open for this year. A little “summer fallow”. I am more curious about you saying the indoor grow lights set up was easier than you thought. I have tried this – not with lights – a few years -and just without success. The grow light business is so foreign to me, I am afraid to do it without more information (seeing how someone else does it). Are you local? Can I come over for a field trip one day and see how you do your grow-op? I love tomatoes. What kinds do you have growing. I still have a ton of heirloom seeds, etc, and a list of ones I want to try – should I get a “grow-op” up and running for next year!
🙂
Valerie
I’m growing Longkeepers (which are doing really well), Bonny Best, and Gardener’s Delight (which are coming really slowly). Also Early Girl (my grandpa always grew those), Romas for paste, and Manitoba Tomatoes, which start brilliantly indoors. All of these are heirloom seed or saved from previous years crops. I’ve tried some different coloured tomatoes, but don’t find the taste worth the novelty. I also have a couple of hybrid varieties I grow to use up old seed. Looking for new varieties. What heirlooms are you wanting to grow?
If you wanted to come over and check out the plant starting, you’d have to visit in March – email me then if you want to, but it is probably simple enough to explain in a comment. I have a unit like the large one here,
http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?cat=2,44716&p=10549 but it was cheaper- got it at Home Hardware. If I had to do it again, I’d go with the Lee Valley unit though – my sis has one, and the lights are nicer – but I’d get a 2 shelf one as the three-shelf one is really more than I need for a backyard garden. I have a small, child-centered home and not a lot of good window light, so I set the unit up in my basement playroom. My food gardening is for and with small children, so I like to have them involved in the process. The plants would do even better with the grow-unit and lights next to a sunny window, if I had such a spot to spare, though.
In the fall, I pull a lot of herbs out of the garden, pot them, and set them up on the top shelf with the grow lights on in that shelf. The other two shelves are great for storing large toys for the children. The grow lights provide extra light in the playroom, too, which makes it nicer for the children and I to be down there in the dark of winter. In March, sometime on or just before the first day of spring, I buy a bag of organic potting soil and some peat trays and start tomato and pepper seeds, maybe a few annual flowers. I germinate the trays of seed on top of my basement fridge and freezer, where it is warm. When they sprout, I set up the trays on the middle shelf of the grow unit with grow lights on. I have never needed the bottom shelf – really, 3 shelves is too big for me.
A month later, I transplant the starts to larger pots and raise the lights. If I need more room on the shelves, I can usually put the pots of cool-weather herbs -oregano, mint and rosemary -outside again by then.
When warm sunny days hit in late April/early May, I lug the tomato plants outside during the day – nothing beats real sun and a little wind to really get them going. I plant them out when the long range forecast looks good in mid-May and watch to cover them if there is a cool night. That’s it 🙂
Definitely, you should get a “grow-op” going for next year – I do recommend the Lee Valley equipment. Pricey to start, and there are budget ways to do it with stuff from Home Depot, building your own shelves, suspending lights from chains, etc. if you are handy. The nicer equipment and proper spectrum lights are probably worth it to a foodie. it is probably a deductable expense if you have a food-related business, too!
Sharon!
How generous you are with your time and information and I have been pouring over every word, too. It is these moments and these “meetings” that make such a difference! You have given me the confidence to “go for it” especially because i know it worked for you and wasn’t too hard or “finicky” as you said. I do love the flavour of some of the “coloured” heirlooms – particularly the Purple Cherokee. I am crazy over it. And I have heard the Krim is even better. I am growing that this year. My posts on tomatoes from last year really highlight my favourites, and I tried to get them again. Couldn’t get them all, but got others to try. I have a list of seed – some I have, some I will get for the grow-op and I will send that to you closer to the time next year. Keep in touch! I sure hope we have a good crop this year. Last year I had a tremendous crop – but as we were leaving for Europe at the end of September had to clean the garden early, thus many many green ones!
🙂
Valerie
Heartbreaking indeed! I agree with everything that Sharon detailed but would like to add that the recommendation is to rotate crops so that the same crops are not in the same space for another three years to keep diseases away. Unless you have acres of land that is easier said than done. Composting also helps with growing healthy microbes that help the soil become more disease resistant. Plus I’m sure that you have a ton of great kitchen scraps to throw in the heap.
Christine!
You are so right. In an urban yard, there isn’t much room to move stuff around as there is only so much sun and so much soil… but, this has happened, and until I learn more, I will definitely do that. I will also dig out the soil around and replace it. We have a lot of compost and use it a lot. I have worked so hard to keep the soil lovely and the yard chemical free. Thanks for the tips! Appreciated!
🙂
Valerie
Where did you get the plants Val?
I had a year where everything had a blight. My peppers, tomatoes AND my potatoes! Once I did some research I found out that blight can affect all of those plants. And that it can contaminate the soil. Once I pieced everything together I remembered I had bought all of those plants from the Hutterites at St Albert Market. Lets just say I no longer buy from them.
Here’s the thing, Genn,
I cannot recall where I got THESE specific plants. Holes and Kulman’s and Apache Seeds. They were not from Apache. And all others from both places are thriving. The four that were together in the back were all the same kind and the one in the front was the only one of its kind. This is not blight, and I have no idea if the soil is contaminated, but I am not replanting this year to find out. I hope a tomato farmer can help me out here and give me some good advice. There are all heirloom tomato plants. Both Holes and Kuhlman’s used to grow all their plants from seed, but I am not sure that Holes still does this anymore. Their volume is so huge. Anyway, it is not spreading, but I am just sick about it.
Thanks SO MUCH for chiming in.
🙂
Valerie
No advice, just sympathy.
I am not an expert in gardening, though I was was looking on internet for solutions to combat slugs. I have tried all natural methods and nothing works. Slugs come year after year and they eat all leaves of tender plants but they do not like tomatoes.
I got interested in reading your post when I saw you live in British Columbia and is a foodie. Have a great Sunday!
To avoid crown rot on tomatoes you have to put the young plants out in the wind. That strengthens the stems and makes them sturdy. You find that rot on tomatoes that have not been well taken care of when they were very young. They were raised to warm at night without any wind vibration to make them tough. Buy your tomatoes from me… and you will NEVER have that problem. My toms are the toughest (yet liberal-thinking) tomatoes this side of the Battlefords.
As for ants, go to UFA and buy diatomaceous earth. It is actually just very fine silica (so totally organic) but it is so sharp it cuts ants to pieces as they walk over it. No… not very nice, but too bad to be an ant in my garden. The problem is that a small bag of diatomaceous earth is about 50lbs… too big for most urban gardeners. I will give people a handful if they come to my little farm, just southeast of the city.
William!
Thank you for the ant solution. In this heat I have them clamouring at my front door an have had to tape it shut. Seriously. They had started coming in, I am assuming in search of food or water. Just one or two, but there would be more – so there is black electrical tape around my door right now. I will buy this immediately!
🙂
Valerie
William!
Thank you!
I have bought a bag and have distributed it everywhere! Will see how it works!
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Valerie
Let me know how it works for you. Did you get it at UFA? I’ve been looking for another place to buy it in smaller quantities.
Hi, William
I read all about it – and I could use the 50 pound bag I have so many ants! It was 36 dollars and we did get it there. The only place that had some was at their Spruce Grove location. It says works best with dry conditions and it rained last night. Needs 48 hours without rain to “kill them” – but I fear unless I cover my entire yard, they will figure it out and just move to another location in the yard. I will wait and see. I really appreciate the advice and will really work at all organic solutions before calling the exterminator… which is, sadly, on my list. They are just that bad.
It is pretty unsightly. White “snow” everywhere…but, I am thankful for the idea!
🙂
Valerie
You have cutworms.
Really? I could not find one! I took these plants out, and the rest thrived, but thank you so much for that advice. They may have been under the soil that the plants came in….?
🙂
V
Hi,
I was looking for information on stem/root rot and found your website. It has been taking out my tomatoes and now eggplants. The plants were growing vigouriously when suddenly the stem rotted at the soil level. It’s only affecting plants in one of my gardens and not all the plants The same transplants were used in three separate yards in the city. My initial search suggested it could be a fusarium fungus in the soil. Had a large basil patch in the space last year but the seed was certified fusarium free might not be that.
Graham!
How interesting! I had basil in the same space before I had my root rot! Sorry about the late reply – have been in Europe!
🙂
V