How to treat rotting/early blight on tomato plant

[Soph1989]

Hi there,
I'm a newbie to vegetable planting and I just noticed some bad signs on my tomato plant and it brought up questions It had early blight, as well as blossom end rot (pictures included of the rot) so I threw the affected leaves and tomatoes out. I understand that the rot could be caused from over watering, calcium deficiency or planting them early in the season, so should I buy some calcium spray or just used crushed egg shells to narrow the causes down along w cutting down on watering? Can I use insecticide, fungicide, and calcium spray one after another or do I need to wait and let each spray absorb before I use another? Any suggestions on which brands to buy? I'm using Eco Sense Bug be Gone insecticide currently.
To treat any blight, I believe copper based is good fungicide but I unfortunately can't find anything organic.
I also have a little red pepper plant called cute stuff red, will the same products be useful on that as well? I appreciate all the help, thank you!

[rainbowgardener]

Pictures?

[Soph1989]

Oh, that's odd, I swear it was there with the post. Thank you!

[rainbowgardener]

So definitely blossom end rot. How about a couple pictures of the plants/ leaves for what makes you think you also have early blight.

Some people swear by all the calcium stuff for blossom end rot, but really it almost never has to do with a lack of calcium in the soil. It is all about inconsistent watering and going through periods of drought stress. Whether or not a particular tomato is going to have BER is determined when the fruit is set. Don't stop watering. You don't want it soggy or sitting in water, but the BER isn't about over-watering per se; it is about too much wet and dry cycles. When it's been moist enough and the plant is growing rapidly and then it suddenly dries out, the calcium transport channels get shut down. Cultivating too close to the roots and damaging them or nights that are too cold when the fruit is being set can also cause it.

You have a condition caused by variations in soil moisture and perhaps a fungal disease. Why would you want to treat any of that with insecticide?

[Soph1989]

Hi rainbowgardener!
Sorry I took long to reply; I unfortunately didn't think about taking a picture at the time, I just threw them in the trash once I pruned them off Now I wish I did take a picture. The affected leaves wasn't totally covered with the brown spots, but it was brown streaks down the centre of the leaves and then out towards the outside of the leaves with some rings, and lots of yellowing leaves.
I can admit that I was inconsistent in the water because early in the season, I started out with watering once a day in the afternoon, and then as it got hotter I was watering in the mornings before I went to work because I would get home around 5 p.m and they were shriveled up by that point from so much hot sun. So then I watered it morning and afternoon because the soil was so dry, so you're probably right on the too wet and dry cycles.
I can't remember the kinds of bugs that I was seeing on my red pepper and tomato plants, but I saw them time to time and I bought insecticide for that reason. Should I try the egg shells to be safe? How do I maintain regular soil moisture in humid weather?

[applestar]

Tomatoes drink up a lot of water once they start fruiting, so it's important that they are planted in large enough containers. Make sure you are watering thoroughly each time you water. When container potting mix is dried out, it pulls away from the walls, creating a gap through which water simply runs out without soaking into the mix.

Some kind of automated watering system helps to overcome moisture issues -- drip irrigation, SIP (sub irrigated planter) with airgap between water reservoir and roots for proper aeration.... Wicking systems like the raingutter/trough set up.... You could also try a flood-and-drain type of system on a timer.

Mulching even with container plants, helps to conserve moisture.

It also helps to keep the containers/root zone shaded/insulated if you live in the south. In the north, you might NEED the extra root zone warmth to get tomatoes (as well as peppers and eggplants) to grow well.

[rainbowgardener]

Insecticides whether poisons or organic are a very mixed bag. There are some organic insecticides (e.g. Bt) that are very targeted, but almost everything else will tend to kill beneficial insects along with the bad guys.

I never recommend spraying anything without knowing what you are treating. Then treat it with the most specific remedy you can and only treat the target. It will work better that way as well as do less environmental damage. I never spray anything but water on my whole garden.

[Soph1989]

applestar: Okay! I'll stay on top of all of that.
Ive been wondering about some kind of drip irrigation system but the ones I've seen in stores are pricey and I'm stuck on money these days.
I'm goIng to buy some mulch, that should definitely keep me from watering twice a day on the 30 degrees days.

[Soph1989]

rainbowgardener: Ooh, well I haven't seen any bugs on them since I've started using it so I'm hoping they were all the bad ones! Okay, I'll stop using that one for now and try using a natural homemade kind that should work effectively if I see bad ones. Thanks so much

"Insecticides whether poisons or organic are a very mixed bag. There are some organic insecticides (e.g. Bt) that are very targeted, but almost everything else will tend to kill beneficial insects along with the bad guys.

I never recommend spraying anything without knowing what you are treating. Then treat it with the most specific remedy you can and only treat the target. It will work better that way as well as do less environmental damage. I never spray anything but water on my whole garden."

[Gary350]

I don't think too much rain or too much water has anything to do with blight. Blight is a fungal disease not much different than mold and mildew the perfect conditions are high humidity and weather conditions that the fungal disease likes. I find it much easier to prevent blight than to stop blight once your plants already have blight. Here in TN humidity is 90 to 100% most of the time even in summer when temperature is 97 degrees and very little rain the last 2 weeks of June, the whole month of July and month of August. It if very common for my tomato plants to get blight the 3rd week of July and my whole crop of tomatoes to be dead by Aug 15. I have learned older plants get blight but younger plants do not so I start new plants from seeds all summer about every 3 or 4 weeks. If my plants die from blight I have several new plants growing producing new tomatoes about 3 weeks apart until November. Some years we have garden tomatoes for Christmas dinner. Iron, lime, wood ash, sheet rock mud, baking soda, copper, are all good to prevent blight but once my tomatoes have blight I never seem to be able to stop it. Put copper sulfate and old rusty nails in the soil with every tomato plant the copper and iron get into the tomato plant and help prevent blight. Put lime or wood ash in the soil too it helps prevent BER. I have learned from 50 years of gardening tomatoes need more lime every 2 weeks all summer to prevent BER. I have noticed tomatoes may do fine for a months then all of a sudden they have BER so a little lime or wood ash every 2 weeks prevents BER. I have not gotten the hang of preventing blight this year we had none stop rain all spring the garden was mud and I was not able to plant tomatoes until a month later than I usually do. I put lime and copper sulfate in the soil when I planted my tomatoes there was no BER for 2 months then 2 plants had BER so I started putting wood ash on all the plants every 2 weeks and no more BER. 4 weeks ago 1 tomato plants got blight and died, it soon spread to all the tomatoes in that row now the whole row is dead. 8 plants in another row are just starting to get blight this variety of tomatoes were a very poor producer the 8 plants only produced about 20 lbs of tomatoes all summer. My Jet Star tomatoes have been making tomatoes for 3 weeks all of a sudden 1 plant died from blight, 1 plant looks bad, the other 2 plants are looking fine so I spray them every day with rust water from a bucket full of rusty metal. I spray rust water on the soil too a quart of rust water in the soil mixed with lime and a small amount of copper sulfate. I have no clue how much copper sulfate to use I just have to guess, not sure if too much will kill the plants or too little with allow blight to kill the plants. So far so good I still have 2 plants making good tomatoes. I have 2 plants at the other end of the garden I started from seeds where 2 bell pepper plants died they are not making tomatoes yet so I doctor them with rust water too maybe I can keep them alive. I throw all the rotten tomatoes in a certain place in the garden 100s of tomato plants are coming up there so I have a good supply of plants to transplant and doctor all fall to try and keep a few tomatoes on the kitchen table until Christmas. The race every year is to get 150 lbs of tomatoes canned in mason jars by July 15 before blight kills my plants we barley made it again this year. I always plant 6 varieties of tomatoes hoping no matter what the weather does certain varieties will produce well enough to give us most of the tomatoes we need to get 150 lbs. This year our best producers were, Big Beef and Beef Master producing about 20 lbs per day from 8 plants.