Vegetable diseases

Our tomatoes are growing strong, and it looks like this will be a much better year for vegetable gardens than we had last year. Dry spring conditions have slowed the development of leaf spot diseases, but even with good weather we know that they inevitably appear. So now is a great time to inspect your plants for the beginning of leaf spot symptoms and prepare to manage problems at the first sign of symptoms.

Finally, it’s tomato harvest season! You’ve tended your plants through cool, cloudy spring conditions into summer’s heat and they’ve done great. Now you finally have tomatoes ripening and ready for harvest. But wait – they have cracks, yellow shoulders and white spots; what is wrong now?

Nothing is more disappointing to the home vegetable gardener than to raise a tomato plant, finally have it loaded with fruit, when suddenly it wilts and dies. What could be the problem? Possible causes include lack of water, fungal wilt diseases, tomato spotted wilt virus, walnut toxicity and stalk borers.