Why are my plants dying?

[Bruce 01]

Hi. I have a small raised bed garden. Around 5-6 years ago I replaced the dirt with well-rotted horse manure. I did the same thing in March of this year. (I'm in NY state)

Every year I plant cherry tomatoes and zukes. This year I planted cukes for the first time. I don't have much room as direct sunlight is limited here. Everything took off like crazy, but then the dead leaves started, first with the tomatoes and now has affected the cukes and zukes.

This happens pretty much every year. The local garden store has told me that I have a fungus problem, and need a copper fungicide spray, but not sure how much good that ever did. New owners, who I don't trust as much, has told me the same thing so I've sprayed them this year also. But everything is dying anyway -- despite the spray. Ideas?

Cukes:



Tomatoes and zukes in the background:

[applestar]

Hi! It’s great that you are growing your garden.

And it’s true, there are always different issues that can cause problems and every year is a learning experience. But that’s why we’re here — to share those experiences and learn from each other.


So, I think your basic garden prep is sound and aged horsemanure in March is probably a good way to get the bed ready for those summer crops if you are not planting until May.

Let me start backwards. THIS is the time of the season in the Northeast when the extreme heat and dry weather or extreme heat and WET weather from the waves of tropical storms can overcome your summer vegetables, especially fungal disease prone ones like solanacea (toms, pepps, and eggies) and cucurbita (cukes, zukes, and squashes). Some summer and winter squashes (C. pepo and C.maxima) are also prone to squash vine borers (SVB’s) that burrow into the basal stem and kill them).

It’s normal to start seeing casualties.


If you live in particularly wet area that gets weekly summer storms, it’s important to provide good spacing and air circulation between plants and especially near the ground.

After many years of different methods, and wanting to avoid spraying chemicals as much a possible, my solution is to get the plants off the ground and grow “vertically” as much as possible and tying up tomatoes, cucumbers, and squashes on supports and trellises. (This also enables tighter spacing needed in my limited sized garden as well as allow the plants to access more/longer sun exposure.)

Around mid-June to Summer Solstice when we start getting humid/muggy/dewey mornings, I do start spraying preventatively with organic/non-toxic household mixtures like —
* 1:8 milk+whey
* 1Tbs potassium bicarbonate or sodium bicarbonate /gal water+drops of canola oil and liquid soap
* 1:100 cultured rice bran water (rice 1st rinse water)
* 1:200 rice vinegar (eggshells infused)+water
* 1:1000 cultured natto water
* Ehime AI 2 — or my approximation of it — mixture of natto, baking yeast, yogurt + soy milk, and water —cultured several days ~ week or more
* 1:10 AACT (Actively Aerated Compost Tea) — must admit I’m not doing this right now but have in past and found effective

It’s also my experience that zukes are just too difficult to avoid SVB’s out in the open. I grow mine in an insect mesh-covered hoophouse. Of the two overflow summer squash growing outside, one has been overcome already, and just today, I noticed second one may be succumbing as well.

I have to go find god tomato photos but here are some examples of zukes and summer squash, and C.maxima kabocha squash in the hoophouse —

— It’s also important to prune lower leaves as the plants grow. I’m also recently trying out Japanese method of trellising and pruning, which involves selectively removing suckers and limiting number of stems. These methods are touted to improve productivity and longevity of the plants.

— A significant fact I learned was that all Cucurbita will DIE if they lose all of their growing shoots/tip growths (in other words, if all growing shoots of the main as well sucker branches are cut off or are damaged by pests, the plant will die. (I lost my cucumbers to Spotted Lanternflies this way one year.)

… and cukes and winter C.moschata winter squash that are not bothered by SVB’s which I grow outside.

It’s also important to pay attention to varieties. Cherry tomatoes are generally “indeterminate”, but some tomatoes are •determinate” varieties that will die off after ripening fruits all at once. You can see these three tomato plants in the right photo is on their last legs. This particular variety can be “semi-determinate” — If I diligently remove blushed and ripe fruits, prune off older leaves, as well as spray the younger new shoots preventively with tonics, the plants may recover, and renewed growths as the weather turns cooler will results in another crop in the fall before frost arrives.

It’s important to regularly fertilize your summer vegetable plants as they set fruit and develop those green fruits — at least once a month, or in small amounts every two weeks.

[applestar]

…Maybe this one to start with for the cherry tomatoes —

This time of my gardening season, there’re so much going on that if I don’t try to summarize what happened each day, I quickly fall behind and it becomes impossible to report, let alone remember what happened.

A couple of highlights —

[…]

Here are my best surprise among my cross breeding projects this year. ‘Kiki’s Afternoon Snack’ and ‘Kiki’s Sunny Spot’ — a completely unexpected appearance and fantastic flavor profile. Not by any means guaranteed to be reproduceable, but I’m going to try.

— will discuss in detail in my Cross thread. Stay tuned.

* ALL tomato leaves up to and below the blushing fruit truss can and should be cut off since they are no longer contributing to fruit production. If healthy, the leaf immediately and directly below the fruit truss on the same side of the stem can stay UNLESS there is excess water from rains or irrigation that could contribute to fruits splitting, since that is the leaf that pumps water and nutrients up from the roots and delivers to the fruit truss.

…

If you want to try picking up your tomatoes and tie them to some kind of support, there’s a trick to it when they are already well-grown.

Pick a day after it has been dry for a couple of days, DON’T water in the morning, and wait until later in the morning, so the overnight turgidity of the stems have weakened, and the stems are more supple.

This way, you are less likely to accidentally snap those branches and stems.

Generally speaking, don’t force the leaves or fruit trusses upwards. They will be more willing to be bent downwards to get them past each other. Try to untangle as much as you can so they will be growing separately in correct direction.

Don’t worry about the leaves or stems facing or bending wrong way, they will sort themselves out based on the new direction of the sun and gravity.

Set up the support at 6 to 8 inches from the base of each plant— I’d say stakes (one sturdy deeply embedded or two crossed over) would be the easiest to start (if you want to use something else later, you can migrate them to the new system once they’ve been picked up and re-oriented themselves.)

Start with whatever is laying on top and gently untangle the upper parts first but lay them back down, then gently cradle enmasse and kind of drape the upper parts over something — a helper holding them up, back of lawn chair, sawhorse, or throw them over your own shoulder .… (You may need to bundle them together with a string for this step).

TAKE this opportunity to remove unneeded lower leaves. Cut tomato leaves with sharp pruners — don’t try to pull off by hand. and cut off leaving about 1/2 inch of stem — this will naturally yellow and drop off or can be flicked off in a couple of days)

…and start tying up the main stem from bottom up.

NOTE — If you don’t know this, manhandling the tomato stems this way will STAIN you clothes and hands and anything they touch. So be prepared.

If they won’t stand up completely, don’t force. Plan on doing this in stages every three days or so. Once you’ve gotten them tied up to your satisfaction for now, water well to help them recover. After a week or so of rest, supplement with good tomato fertilizer to help them restore.