Tomato Wilt - Year 2!

Last year each of my tomato plants eventually got some form of wilt or blight. And despite using sparkling new soil from the nursery and disinfecting each pot - it's baaaaaaack!

So far it's positively in my first three tomato plants - two Jelly Beans and a Brandywine. I've suspected it for weeks but didn't want to admit it, but the Brandywine got so bad it was time to put it down :( And not a single tomato did it produce.... The Jelly Beans however have tons of tomatos on them, they seem to be stronger at fighting the wilt though I know they probly only have another couple of months. It is very likely my stupid fault because I added extra to raise the soil level in the pots a couple weeks after planting...and I think I just re-used some soil from another pot I was re-planting. *doh* No disinfecting at all....

I also suspect my Yellow Pear tomatos in their humungo pot are catching some sort of wilt but I don't know how as I am 100% sure they got sparkling new soil and did NOT get re-used soil.... I must watch them carefully....

Anyway, I had to very carefully remove the fallen tomato plant to not disturb it's mates in there...

mmmm.. Carrot Scarlet Nantes and Basil Purple Petra....

At least a couple of carrots were ready as well (and stunted from tomato roots of course).

And there's the new squash baby. It's a mini-scalloped type... I can't recall the exact variety at the moment. Anyway, it should do fine in a container this size. I've another one in a similar sized container as well. Hope I get many yummy squashes!

Once 3 Sisters, now only 2...

I was so disappointed to come home yesterday afternoon and find one of my sunflowers knocked over by the severe winds :( I knew as soon as I saw it that it was done for. The huge sturdy stem never gave but the roots did, broken just below the grade.

I couldn't even bear to take a picture of it or the two remaining ones after John helped me take it down.

The other two are still fine, but with the winds not dying down that evening I didn't take any chances either. I tied both to the fence behind them to keep them from swaying to far and breaking from their roots. Three ties for each - one directly back to the fence and one about 12-18 inches to either side of the first. I thought that would minimize the sway in most directions and it the was the best I could do. Those monsters are already 8 feet tall and haven't fully developed the main heads yet. I don't have any staking material strong enough to handle them.

Hope that works.

My First Leaf Miners :/

The little buggers went after my quinoa! At first I thought it must have been a hell of a lot hotter than I thought on Tuesday and that I must have forgotten to water one of them. Wednesday morning all the leaves were shriveled up. Then I notice that they were shriveled in a funny way and I though "omg they have that curling disease!"

Then I saw it was starting to affect the other quinoas so I investigated closer and found (dundundun):

Hmm there is something odd about those dark spots within those odd bubbles on these leaves. Perhaps it is time for some exploratory surgery here...

AHA! That's it - that's one of them! That pale wormy thing! I discovered 2 or 3 others between this and the other plants. All affected leaves were immediately snipped off and deposited in the trashcan with the tightest lid on the other side of the house. A quick internet search says they must be leaf miners! Larvae hatched from eggs inserted into the leaves, safe from predators but not bicycle cat ladies with pointy pruners and alot of angst /:) They could be baby flies, wasps or moths. I don't know what species this is and I'm not going to waste all morning looking. The only decent solutions I found were to use a certain organic pesticide (which needs to be reapplied twice in the growing season and not when there's a chance of bees hanging around-no) or companion planting my columbines nearby so they will attract leaf miner parent bugs away from my food crops.

...I think I love my columbines a little to much to do that to them...

I'm just going to keep a very close eye out for any more of them in that seedling area because they decimated the one quinoa in a day and got several more leaves on the other ones. I think they will recover since they didn't lose all of their leaves and they seem to be pretty tough little guys.

And thanks Em for finding amusement in my severe annoyance at these bad bugs.