Gardening with Nature's Crossroads

Tips on avoiding late and early tomato blight from LIFE farmer Jeff Evard.

The warm weather is likely bringing your tomatoes to fruit now. The plants are working hard and anything less than ideal conditions can weaken them.  A lot of the plant’s energy is being diverted away from leaf, root, and stem development and being put into the whole point, the fruit. When plants are stressed from the environment,  insects, or lack of nutrition, disease really begins to set in. Since your tomatoes are putting most of what they can mine from the soil into the fruit, this is an especially important time to re-fertilize your plants to keep them actively growing and healthy.

Early Blight conditions are definitely with us in the Midwest and Late Blight has just been identified here in Indiana. Take action to head off these diseases by keeping your plants’ soil full of what it needs to naturally fight the infection. These two diseases of tomatoes have been common the last few years and steps taken now  will help ensure a plentiful harvest through September.

1. Fertilize with a well balanced organic fertilizer at the roots such as Fish Emulsion to keep your plants healthy.  (Nature’s Crossroads is working to identify a locally sourced product and will hopefully offer one through the webstore soon.)
   
2. Consider pruning your plants to allow for better air flow and better balance the fruit-to-root ratio.
   
3. If your tomato leaves are dying from the bottom up, you may want to consider adding Epsom salts to the fertilizer mix, which will help size up the fruit quickly before all is lost.  (Epsom salts are readily available at drugstores and many grocery stores.)
4. As a last resort, copper based fungicides applied at 7-10 day intervals, combined with a feeding, will help keep the diseases from progressing.
5. If you see signs of late blight on your tomato plants, consider contacting your local Extension agent for confirmation and to help track the spread of the disease in your area.

Amy Thompson, our Purdue extension agent here in Monroe County, provided a link to a helpful article about late tomato blight that is geared towards organic farms – http://www.extension.org/article/18361

For those who learn best by video, there is also an archived webinar from earlier in July that includes links to various blogs and articles focusing on late blight in the Midwest – http://www.extension.org/article/28346