I was hoping to keep these going until our first frost instead of starting all new plants since these DO have new blloms coming on them. But if they are diseased I need to get them out and burned now. Could all of this damage be from the bugs or is something more sinister going on? The brands of tomatoes are Early Girl, Homestead, Rutgers (the hardest hit), Brandywine, and Beefsteak. Here are the pics:

Are the tin cans to discourage cutworms or another critter, or for some other esoteric purpose?

What are your daily high temps? Do you live in one of those parts of the country where people grow a spring crop and a fall crop, but everything dies in the summer?

If the verdict is that your toms aren't goners, you should mulch around them. That will help keep the soil cool, cut evaporation a bit, minimize weed growth, and prevent disease-causing organisms from splashing onto the leaves. As the mulch breaks down, it will enrich the soil.

I have suspicions as to what your main problem is, but I don't know enough to say.

Mulching that ground might have eased the soil contact problem you mentioned. Cages or other support should have been in place very early. Stakes can be added to cages to allow additional height, but most of us understand that our indeterminates will reach the top of the cages, curl over and droop back down. I plan for it to happen.

Spray with Daconil or Garden Safe or some antifungal now and hope your plants have enough energy left to generate new growth. Care for that new growth and it might give you some fruit before the season ends. Sevin is good for some of the critters (worms, etc), but I don't trust it for fungus.

Ted

Damon

In your climate, propagate stem cuttings from healthy plants in June and set them out in late July. You'll get plenty of fall tomatoes.

This pic was a closeup of the back of a healthier looking leaf, same plant. You can barely make them out, here.

For what it's worth, my plants almost always look like yours do, by this time of year, even without mites. And they do this year, too, although a few are making a comeback and putting out new flowers. There are some lucky people out there that can keep their plants going all year long, but I'm not one of them. I've been hanging around here for years and still don't know how to do that. What I do is start new plants, months or weeks earlier, for a backup. I've also come to appreciate the simple rewards of cherry tomatoes, which last longer, produce longer, and seem to keep my morale up when everything else in the garden turns to sh**.

What can you do about the russet mites? You can spray them, but when they get to that point, the cure will kill them faster than the mites. Soap is supposed to be good, but soaping a sick plant will kill it, at least when I do it. If you are afraid of it spreading, though, it might be worth a try.

I took this week off and sprayed the plants down with a strong blast of water as well as a good soaking shower two or three times a day. The plants seem to have taken off this week with a bunch of new growth and even some blooms, although I'm sure it's to hot for them to set. I don't know if it was the extra water that hit the soil, it's too hot for the leaves to stay hydrated and they browned like yours did or the fact that russet mites prefer it hot and dry. Either way, if you are home during the day, spray them down with a good jet from the hose and make sure they get plenty wet all over.

So yesterday I finished trellising the last row of tomatoes and trimmed back the rest of the curled up dead stuff. Then I went thru with my tiller and grubbing hoe and loosen up the dirt (which wasn't very hard around the plants, just down the middle of the row). I then put the sprayer on my hose and blasted the bugs off the leaves. I was very meticulous to get every leaf of every plant. After all of that I put the hose on at a slow run and SOAKED the entire bed. We'll see how everything works out and I'll keep ya'll updated if my plants actually make it or not....

Don't get me wrong - these tomatoes were once VERY lush to the point of not being able to walk thru them. I was picking 1-2 5 gallon buckets of tomatoes every 3-4 days. It's just one day I went out there and BAM they looked dead. It seemed to happen overnight. So I thought perhaps I had burned them with the sevin spray and hence I did nothing else to them. They started recovering then the new growth was showing signs of something going on. That's when I was afriad I had some disease going on or something. But I took the time to really look hard at the leaves and saw all these little red bugs on them.

Anywa, crossing my fingers I don't have to start with all new plants.....