Composting diseased tomato leaves?

[the999bbq]

to cook up this discussion again : wouldn't it be somewhat dramatic that nature would have no way to cope with diseased plant material ? outbreaks would never stop, yet increasingly spand out - I'm not a biologist, it is just gut-science. Is the composting technique of the landfills/compostingcenters that good that they always kill of everything (lots of 'industrial' compost goes back to gardeners). When I compare it with homemade compost it usually gives me the creeps - the compost looks dead alright, smells like hell, so I'm not convinced what is worse than the other. I think active composting (good quantaties and good balance between materials, good control over air and moisture) thus obtaining two good temperature spikes should give good compost that can be used with normal hygien (keeping plants dry) without problems. I do dispose of fall material since composting during late fall and winter isn't ideal.

[bryanccfshr]

I lay all the plants down and mow over them with a bag mower. I then throw the chopped up tomato plants into the pile. My pile has been hot and steamy for months now. I keeping adding to it all winter , leaves, veggie scraps, 50#'s at a time of used coffee grounds, bad eggs, stale bread, bad milk etc. By early March when I begin using it to amend my new Tomato plantings the tomato plants that I added would have been through 4 decent heat cycles and in reality are only a very small portion of what I have added. I believe the more diverse the ingredients the better the compost. there is also the inoculation theory where by adding disease organisms to the pile, organisms that consume the pathogens will take up residence and by adding the compost to a planting one is inoculating the soil against disease organisms.

[creister]

This question was posted over at GW a couple of years ago. If memory serves, about 50% said compost them for the reasons that Bryan just stated. The other 50% said do not. I wonder if spider mite eggs would die in the heat of the pile?

[bryanccfshr]

You have to understand that a pile is not a static state. Organisms eat other organisms. Things like insect eggs are no exception in fact they are probably quickly consumed in an active pile.
I know for a fact I cannot keep blight out of my garden. It will blow in. The best I can do is grow healthy plants and perhaps do a prophylactic spray program of daconil. Insects are much the same.. They will come to unhealthy plants. Spider mites will show up on tomato plants already in distress. Again a preventative foliar spraying program including seaweed can make the plant less attractive.

Spores are in the earth, floating in the air and certainly in the compost. Unless you want to go for sterile container gardening replacing your growing medium with every grow you are going to have pathogenic organisms that are designed to prey upon your crop.
Since we cannot eliminate them why not encourage organisms that compete with or consume the bad organisms? Somehow cornmeal is able to attract a member of the Trichoderma fungus family, which is a good fungus that kills off disease causing fungi in a matter of weeks. This would be good to sprinkle into the planting bed before plant out.

The inoculation theory is that the antigens to the diseases will prosper in a compost pile that contains some pathogenic organisms. Carolyn in her pre retirement profession probably has insight into the antigen/pathogen relationships.
I do not like to waste my spent tomato plants so they get composted and mixed with the leaves, coffee grounds, thanksgiving and Xmas turkey carcasses, fish scraps, table scraps and weeds and hedge trimmings that all go into my pile.
It is fascinating how complex yet balanced soil life can be. Some folks prefer to remove materials from their garden, while others try different approach. I am fairly adamant that no organic matter leaves my garden.

[the999bbq]

I'm happy to have you in my team Bryan ;-)
improve the soil and you improve the micro-biospehere that is your garden where the good the bad and the ugly are in a relative balance. And as bryan pointed out the bad are everywhere so bring in the good ones...

That's the theory some use when spraying compost tea on the leafs - they are quite strict on how that tea should be produced (only a couple of days before appliance, heated, aerated) - but they hope to bring the good ones before the bad ones arrive...

you see that most plants being attacked by a disease are most likely not that healthy to start with and that can be for many reasons : bad soil condition, wrong growing place...

My father gave me two bananaplants last year, they where in the same soil, in a similar pot, on practically the same spot next to each other; one was infested with bugs, the other was doing just fine - the infested one looked miserable from the start so.. just think that all creatures, fungae,... have a specific role in the cycle of life and that when the firebrigade stops at your door your house might be burning, and that when some ugly beatles are nibbling at your toes you might be dead : they are just doing what they are designed to do and some creatures are designed to break down organic matter for the benefit of other plants, creatures, fungae,...

so improve that little biosphere in your garden, bring in the good don't just try to blast out the bad yourself nature is happy to do that for you....

[tuk50]

I've always used every scrap of anything that will decompose from weeds to bacon grease. Some years my tomatoes struggle some they don't, but it seems directly related to the weather and not my compost use as sidedressing. This past year as an example I've had one of the best tomato crops ever for me, and it is the first year I've not used chemical fertilizers in pellet form, but I did use every last scrap of wilted tomato vines, squash vines, etc.... So.. I'm a believer in organic balance, so this year I'm not even using liquid chemicals. It is the only thing that explains my experience over the last few years or so, unless you count in luck.. and that is important the way I grow things ... LOL.. 8)

[maupin]

I have been an organic gardener since 1992 and I would NEVER compost my tomato plants. The odds are they are carrying some disease by the end of the season, and said disease will only be killed by 160 degree temp in the part of the pile where they reside.

I freely admit that I am not enough of a compost geek to know that this has occurred. The odds are that it has not.

I burn the tomato waste and put the ashes in the pile.

[ovenbird]

I put diseased plants and weeds in a separate pile that will sit a lot longer than my normal pile. I use a cat litter made from corn, and to the separate pile I also sometimes add balls of cat urine soaked litter.

[RJ_Hythloday]

I compost everything except for the stalks containing live SVB. I've read about composting diseased material helping eliminate future disease. Idk if it's true but it's working for me so far. 2nd year composting and planting in it.