Vegetable disease?

[FarmerSkull]

Hi All,

I'm wondering if you could help me identify this. It started on my tomato plant.

It looks like the flesh has been ripped off, exposing a white underbelly. Insects? (I'm at war with aphids and caterpillars)

I started with an empty pot and fresh vegetable soil. The plant was already 8" tall when brought home from Home Depot two weeks ago. I fertilized with a 3-1-1 liquid once, so far.

It also appears to be impacting my near by lettuce plant.

Thoughts?

Thanks!
Greg

[rainbowgardener]

Probably not disease. Probably the marks left behind by your aphids or other piercing / sucking insects.

But those leaves look very healthy. The leaf/ plant has no difficulty surviving such minor damage. I wouldn't bother doing anything except keeping an eye out to see if it gets worse.

[FarmerSkull]

OK thanks. I released 1500 ladybugs (<$10 on Amazon). I'm thinkin I might get some BT tomorrow for the caters.

[rainbowgardener]

Sounds good. Understand that your goal is never to have zero aphids or whatever. If that would happen, then the ladybugs would start starving and leave. Some of them will anyway, since 1500 is so many. I might have released a third of them and left the others in the fridge for another time. The goal is to make your yard a mini-ecosystem that stays in balance, so you never have any huge infestation of anything that decimates crops.

[FarmerSkull]

Thanks for the pro-tip on the Ladybugs.

I'm in a townhome. Just on the other side of my patio wall is a huge bougainviella. The plant was invested with them. I let the 1500 out in that plant. I manually moved many onto my plants.

It's been 4 days now. I do see the occasional little bugger flying around, but the quantity seems significantly diminished. Also, they seem to be sticking around.. as much can be expected, anyway.

Thanks for the tip on time delay. I read about that too.

Greg

[imafan26]

It is aways a good idea to talk to your plants every day. Look under the leaves since that is where you will find most of the sucking pests like aphids, whiteflies, and mealybugs. Look for ants. Put out ant bait. Ants protect aphids from their predators. Attract good bugs by planting some flowers like alyssum, and ray flowers like sunflowers, cosmos, Queen Anne's lace, artemesias, single gold marigold, and daisiies. Let some of the herbs and vegetables flower like basil and parsley. Tomatoes can be underplanted with garic chives as a pest deterrant. Make sure your pot is big enough. People say 5 gallons is enough but I like 18 gallon pots better. Tomatoes are heavy feeders of nutrients and water.

Don't expect perfection in the plants. As long as you have a strong garden patrol, they will keep the bad guys in check but it won't be zero, otherwise the good guys will go elsewhere looking for food.