Almost never spray - am I just lucky ?

[Patihum]

After reading a lot of the different posts on diseases and pests and everyone constantly using sprays for aphids, mites, fungus diseases etc. I've decided I must be very lucky. Maybe once in the past five years I sprayed with a Bordeaux mixture for blight. And there was the one year that I had a multitude of beetles that were stripping the plants almost overnight that I used some Sevin very sparingly only on the lower branches of the tomatoes. (I know - not an organic choice) Other than that I don't use anything on my toms. I guess what I'm wondering is if certain parts of the country are just more prone to these problems and others less. I live in SE Kansas and most of the gardeners I know generally have the same problems as me with the beetles and blight and not much else.

[TightenUp]

climate def plays a role. i moved 1 block towards the beach and my garden is exposed to salty misty sea water filled air. all of a sudden my plants get covered with bacterial disease.

1 block inland my father grew tomatoes for years and never sprayed and never had disease issues. so yes even small micro climates can make a huge difference

[bughunter99]

I've never sprayed-ever. But I live in Chicago not New Orleans and that makes a big difference. I also garden for pleasure not for income. So I choose chemical free without concern about hurting my livelihood.

Stacy

[Mlm1]

I've also never sprayed. I really want the native bees and butterflies to do well in my yard and it just isn't worth causing any problems to the bees/butterflies. Luckily we are not humid so I don't get a lot of the fungal problems, at least not until late in the season. I've got 100's of lady bugs this year (showed up on their own) so I haven't even seen aphids yet. I have had mites and thrip in the past and just about the time i think i'm going to lose the plants i see a shift in balance and another "bug" comes in and kills the pest and the plants rebound. Some day I may lose the plants but I'll still have a lot of wonderful butterflies and native bees.
Marla

[KarenO]

Cold winters up here don't allow for over-wintering of most diseases and insects that are a major problem for tomatoes. I have never needed to spray anything on mine either. The trade off of course is late springs and early frosts interspersed with big thunderstorms (hail) in summer making weather the biggest challenge I face in growing good tomatoes. We all have different problems depending where we live I guess
KarenO

[ddsack]

Yes, it's climate related, and sometimes the luck of the draw in which way the wind blows the fungal spores. When I first started gardening I was all organic, learned alot from the original newsprint editions of Organic Farming and Gardening magazine. That was fine for a few years, but then three years in a row, I lost my tomato crop in August to various blights, just before I could harvest any meaningful amount of fruit. It was heart breaking and maddening to put in that much time into growing my favorite crop, only lose it. I decided that I was not going to put myself through that anymore. I now use daconil a few times in June and July which means I can rely on having a tomato crop. My area is not normally very humid, so if I can keep the plants healthy until August, they will be ok for me until the cool late fall weather blights takes them all out anyway.

[JamesL]

Very lucky!
Not having to spray would be a huge bonus. I don't have many bug issues and I would attribute that to what Jeff says about micro climates.
I am all for preventative spraying for disease though.

[b54red]

I don't know anyone who likes to spray their tomatoes. It is a time consuming expensive thing and very necessary down here where I live. Our hot and very humid climate make it ideal for fungal diseases and warm winters mean most pests over winter just fine. I also live in a small city surrounded by a lot of commercial tomato growing which means that more than the normal amount of problems are created by that. Frequently the commercial growers will abandon a field after the first few major pickings and the untended plants are just hosts for all manner of tomato problems that get blown my way.

It would sure be nice not to have to spray every week but then again it would be hard to live with only having a very short growing season. I guess if you want to have fresh tomatoes for over half the year there has to be a downside.

Bill

[Riceloft]

I never spray either. Its well accepted that tomatoes in my area will eventually get some disease (blight perhaps? I really don't know. I may post pictures of it this year) but 98% of the time the plants survive through the first frost and it doesn't generally impact the fruit.

[RebelRidin]

Before I started using Danconil last year I had never sprayed a tomato. The stink bugs are tempting me though!

[Ms. Jitomate]

Isn't this based on how many tomato plants you plant? The more you have the easier it is for the bugs to find your plants. When I just planted 3 tomato plants 28 years ago, I never got bugs or even thought about looking for bugs in my plants. I have gradually increased the number of plants and last year I had stink bugs, aphids, and horn caterpillars. For the first time this year I planted 17 tomatoes plants, so I am inspecting them to make sure there isn't going to be an invasion of bugs.

Also, 28 years ago I planted what the nurseries sold. So I planted hybrids with resistance to diseases. This year I planted 90% heirlooms which have less resistance to diseases. A disease tomato is a weak plant that can attract a bug like an aphid.

[KLorentz]

In Frontier MI I had not sprayed anything. With the exception of a few tomato horn worms and squash vine borers all the bugs where dispatched by the local frog and toad population.I wish everyone could have that kind of help in the garden. less chemicals too if folks saw the opportunity.

[tlintx]

I now have several skinks and a crap ton of geckos assisting me in the garden.

I don't spray or use any chemicals, but I'm under no illusions that it's anything but luck! And being isolated from other tomatoes. I'm hoping my "immunity by obscurity" will last at least until my toddler is old enough to understand "yucky". Right now he thinks it means "Interesting".

[tomatoguy]

I haven't sprayed, in years. Bugs aren't too bad, here. Aphids early and stinkbugs late, for the most part. Early Blight seems to be the main disease issue, currently and my indeterminates seem to grow faster than the blight can spread. I will only bring out the spray if the blister beetles show up this year. I have only seen them once, in my entire 47 years or so of gardening. That was 2007, I believe. I used to spray with soapy insecticidal spray, copper fungicide and neem oil. My current approach is to grow enough for me and the bugs, too. I have more problems with birds and squirrels than any other pest and spraying doesn't help with them, unless you are using buckshot.

mater

[b54red]

Originally Posted by tomatoguy

I haven't sprayed, in years. Bugs aren't too bad, here. Aphids early and stinkbugs late, for the most part. Early Blight seems to be the main disease issue, currently and my indeterminates seem to grow faster than the blight can spread. I will only bring out the spray if the blister beetles show up this year. I have only seen them once, in my entire 47 years or so of gardening. That was 2007, I believe. I used to spray with soapy insecticidal spray, copper fungicide and neem oil. My current approach is to grow enough for me and the bugs, too. I have more problems with birds and squirrels than any other pest and spraying doesn't help with them, unless you are using buckshot.

mater

I wish I could use buckshot. I have to settle for single pellets. Keep at it all year and I am only holding about even on the squirrel population. They must multiply like rats.