Another one bites the dust

Mr. Stripey quickly succumbed to the wilt, so I put him out of his misery and pulled him up.  So, three out of 10 tomatoes in bales got bacterial wilt: one HC, one FL and now my only MS.  I'll have to wait till next year to see what that guy's fruit is like.   The MS did not even produce open flowers; some trusses were forming but would probably need another 2 weeks to bloom - about a month later than all the other varieties.

So clearly bales are not a panacea to disease. There are a few possible culprits here in order of my suspicion.  First, I put my own compost on the bales and that was dumb.  Easy to avoid next year.  Second, they have been getting sprayed by my ground irrigation system, so that might have been splashing spores around.  I could deactivate that station on my automated irrigation controller. Third, some of them may have put roots through the bottom of the bale, through the degrading cardboard into the ground.   One possible solution would be to put weed control mat under the cardboard too, to make a better barrier to roots & shoots. Fourth, the bales themselves could already have been contaminated when I bought them, which seems unlikely, and impossible to do anything about really.

On the other hand, the other seven plants are growing mostly great. The surviving FL and HC are OK, do not show signs of wilt and are still growing and producing fruit.     Carbon is doing nicely.  White beauty and BC are growing tall enough that I put 8 foot poles into the bales for more support; these reach about 9 feet off the ground!

Sun Gold had some signs of yellow low branches and a little drooping on one or two secondary stems. I aggressively pruned these off.  As of 6/23 the plant seems OK.


CA+MS ; WB+BC; HC+HC; FL+FL;  SG +  F4 #55A-7;

Flamme... has burned out

Mr. Stripey was not happy.  Two days later it looked awful and I ripped it out.

White Beauty and Black Cherry, together between the wood poles.

Carbon