I should have pruned more.

[b54red]

Well as someone once said "The chickens have come home to roost." After several weeks of dry weather with for us fairly low humidity my tomato plants were looking fantastic. Because they looked so good I didn't do my usual amount of foliage removal and they got really thick and bushy a state that I know only leads to disaster down here. A little over a week ago it started raining every day and for six straight days we had at least one good rain every day and most nights. Then the rain stopped 3 days ago and the temperatures which were already high jumped up to around 100 and the nights barely cooled off much. I could barely get out in the garden before the temps were in the 80's and by 8:00 am it was in the mid 80's and by 9 we are in the 90's. Yesterday afternoon when I went out to water at 6pm it was 97 degrees and while sweating and watering I checked my plants closely.

The disaster I knew was coming was here. Lots of gray mold on my black tomatoes, early blight really taking off, and other spot diseases showing up. I hadn't even seen any aphids a week ago and now some of my thicker bushier plants are infested along with a decent amount of whiteflies. I guess all I need now is to see spider mites to make it worse. Oh yeah, I found two more plants in my new bed hit with TSWV.

The Daconil and copper had not done such a good a job but then it is partially my fault for allowing the plants to get so thick and bushy. I'm still kicking myself. I know better but the lure of the beautiful tomato plant can even get the better of an old pruner like me.

Mixed up 3 gallons of diluted bleach spray at a rather heavy concentration due to the extent of the diseases and how fast they were moving up the plants and sprayed the heck out of them early this morning. I really had to soak some plants and may have caused some unnecessary healthy leaf damage with my aggressive use of the bleach spray. We will see in a few days.

If it cools off enough to walk outside this evening without fainting from the heat I think I will reapply Daconil and then check in the morning to see how extensive the damage was from the diseases and the bleach spray.

I only get suckered into this situation every few years because most years the early disease pressure caused me to be much more aggressive in my pruning. This year started out with the least disease pressure I have seen in many years and I fell for it again.

Bill