Tomatoes

We originally planted about 40 tomato plants - half heirlooms and other half plum types for sauce making. The garden is fresh dug and we did not test the soil (don't know why!) and all we did was add a couple of buckets of manure to the area.

Although this is the real first garden we had, we have been canning our tomato sauces for the last several years, using the "seconds" from our local farms. So this year, we were so excited to be able to can the sauces using our own tomatoes.

Everything was looking great until the heirlooms started wilting. The leaves were still dark green and healthy looking, but they wilted during the day and recovered at night. Around the same time, the eggplants and a few pepper plants started showing the same problem and died quickly. I did some research and was convinced that it was either Fusarium or Verticillium wilt, for which there was apparently nothing you could do to save them. At this point, All of the heirlooms were suffering pretty bad, so I pulled most of them out. The plums that were planted much later in a different bed were doing okay then, but a few weeks later, the same thing started happening. This is what they looked like then.

I know this is our first garden and we can't expect everything according to the plan, but we were really looking forward to the tomatoes. So I desperately did more research and came across this product called "Actinovate." I am opposed to the use of any chemicals, but this product is apparently safe for organic gardening. It is not cheap, and my plants were already well established by then, but this was going to be my last hope before calling it quits.  I also bought some high quality fertilizer along with it.

Now this is how they looked after 1 application of Actinovate and fertilizers.

Some still wilt at the hottest part of the day, but not as bad as they used to. They also started being more productive. Each plant initially had only 3-4 tomatoes before they got sick, but now they are flowering non stop and putting on some fruit.

Since I did both Actinovate and fertilizers at the same time, I can not say which did the trick - maybe it was the combination of both. I wish I knew about this product before I pulled out all those beautiful heirloom plans. But at least, it looks like we'll see some plum tomatoes.