I live in the SF Bay Area, where temperatures are, on the whole, rather cool in the summer. Skies are overcast at night and the morning.

I am a new gardener, and I have had great luck with herbs, greens, onions and beans.

I planted tomatoes in May from starter plants. I only planted cherries and yellow/green varieties because of cooler temperatures. I know that I crowded them a bit (18" spacing). Most of my plants are doing well.

One plant exhibited the following pathologies. 100% Blossom drop, yellowing leaves... and when investigating the stem at soil level, the lower 12" stems were covered in hundreds of small (<1/8" dia.) hard, yellow wart-like lesions. (I say wart-like because the larger ones had a cauliflower-textured center). I cut open the lesioned stem. No mold. There was a ~1/4" diameter hollow center chamber (>1/2" diameter stem).

I ended up pulling out the plant and disposing of it because my other plants are doing well, this one seemed doomed, and removing it (from the center of the bed) gives the other plants more room.

But, I have not been able to identify the problem. I've done a good web search, but that is the extent of my knowledge.

Any feedback would be helpful!
Celeste

Are your temps cool _this_ summer?

The lower stems with the wart like lesions are probably just showing some development of root primordia (do a search on root initials or primordia on this forum for more info).

Tbe yellowing leaves could mean a number of things. Take a look at the Tomato Problem solver thread.

I'm in SF proper and am having some similar problems re: wart like leisons on my heirloom tomatos. Are the veins of the leaves turning purple?

If so, you are suffering from a Psyllid infestation. They're similar to Aphids, but inject a toxin that posions the plant which turns the leaf veins purple. That seems to be a problem here in SF this year.

Ladybugs may or may not eat them, but a suggested fix is to apply sulfur - I went down to Plant-It-Earth (Market St near Noe) and got a bottle of 'Safer' fungicide which is basically a sulfur solution and a bag of ladybugs. The fungicide seems to help, although it pissed off the ladybugs enough they left me... I'm going to apply one more dose later this week, and then get another bag of Lady's on the weekend to finish off the problem.

Hope this helps,

Trowa