Novice gardening question

[Mack Tripper]

A few months ago, I planted some tomatos. They were doing great for a while and are now almost to medium size, although still green. However, in the last couple of days, a lot of the leaves on two of the plants starting turning yellow and wilting, and some of the leaves have little holes in them.

I can't imagine its from a lack of water, as the affected plants are in an earthbox and are watered twice a day. The other plants are in regular round planters and haven't turned yellow, but do have a few little holes in the leaves. I'm guessing its some sort of insect. If so, what should I use to get rid of them but not kill my dogs and ingest a bunch of deadly chemicals when I eat my tomatoes?

 

[14tokihorn]

Perhaps it's a combination of things, since the earthbox plants are both yellowing and have holes. The other just has holes.

I'm thinking 1) insects & 2) water issues

For insects, either spider mites and/or aphids. I believe both can be controlled with a pyrethryn (sp?) based spray. There' a brand caled 'Safer' at the nusseries to look for.

A more labor intensive plan is to blast of the entire plant with a fairly strong spray of water... use your hose with some sort of head that is both strong enough to wash off the leaves and stems. but (obviously) won't bend the plants over. This will knock the bugs off the leaves, and will just control them.

I just use my free hand to support the plant while jetting off the foliage with the hose.
If your go with the water route, you gotta do it everyday, preferably in the evening... its a judgement call. IMHO, as to when the bugs have been decimated enough.

Are you watering with city water? seems to me X2 a day on the earthbox is alot of water.... I have good luck by just insuring that tomatoes have 'constant' soil moisture; neither too wet or too dry.
the plants may be going through too much wet/dry periods. Can you mulch the top of the earthbox? That will help even out the soil moisture... its getting hot out there.
Then on top of that, you've got chlorinated water to think of.

I've heard that liquid humate will bind to the chloramine component of city water and make it a non-issue. You can get this stuff at a good garden shop - Natural Gardener in Austin - if you live here.
If you measure it out, I bet one bottle will last all season.

edit: The wilting, itself, is due to too much water. At least thats been my experience with growing tomatoes. Then the insects have come along and compounded that, then the plant has responded by yellowing.

 

[Jellydonuts]

On what part of the plant are the leaves turning yellow and wilting? If it is the bottom part you probably have Fusarium Wilt, which is pretty bad fungus. It might have been caused by a combination of overwatering and the dramatic heat up we just experienced. I don't know of a reliable treatment for that, but you can check with a nursery. My guess is you are going to lose these plants and need to change out your soil in those containers.

It might indeed be insects, but it sure sounds like a disease.

 

[LazyEngineer]

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[Mack Tripper]

Thanks for the info. The wilting is starting from the bottom and they are heirloom plants. Sounds like it could be Fusarium Wilt. I live in Houston, and it hasn't been super hot here recently. I notice earlier that I have some standing water on the top of the plastic covering of the earth box that probably isn't helping with fungal issues.