My tomato plants, and my friend Jane's who lives about 10 miles from me (close to downtown L.A.), look just like Zolablue's. Lower leaves crispy and dead and plants looking spindly, tops of plants green and healthy. We planted both heirlooms and not-heirlooms; they all look stressed. I've been growing tomatoes for 15 years and have never had such a bad looking bunch. Every year I rotate crops, and my cultural practices haven't varied much. Every year I amend the soil with organic matter, and I water and fertilize correctly. Is this a terrorist plot, to starve us all out by denying us our tomatoes?

Yes I am.

I had two lovely days sitting under that tent they put up for me and dispensing info on tomatoes and signing books and drinking the superb ice cold tomato juice they had out there for everyone, and then on Sunday Gary's brother drove me to their Orange location where it was COLD and rainy the whole time.

I was so surprised when Gary had to close down Hortus but he has a good poition with Armstong Nurseries and still is directly involved with the newer form of Tomatomania, and we are in touch from time to time.

And yes, it's a plot against you that your toamtoes are going south, as in bad news. LOL I can't begin to tell you the folks I meet online, who grow in the same area you do, at different places where I post who are having the same problems outlined here, and often very hard to diagnose.

Carolyn