Bonide Eight worked well on our Flea Beetle problem.

http://www.bonide.com/lbonide/backlabels/l442.pdf

Best tomato year ever. Sungolds look like Xmas trees, my big fruit plants...Early Girl, Champion and Fantastic are awesome. Grape Juliets, Italian sweets and Roma are incredible.
Jalapenos were delicious last night with goat cheese and bacon on the grill. Corn is slow.
No bugs or blight, just #@$% raccoons in my grapes.

Steve, I haven't tried it because cutworms have not been a problem in our garden, but I hear that coffee grounds scattered around the base of the plant stems will keep them off the plants...doesn't kill them, but they won't eat the plants.

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. When it comes to herbicides/pesticides, we only use stuff that is good for organic food...there are plenty of things that will kill bugs and weeds in your garden that come with enough warnings on the label to make you think it was made in Chernobyl. Why people would consider putting stuff like that in their yard at all, much less on their food, is a mystery to me.

Beneficial nematodes , they come on a sponge you set in water then put in a sprayer. You can also use diotomaceous earth around the base of the plant. It cuts the worms. You can get both at most grange supply stores. You can also rake the soil around your plants if it will not disturb the roots and you can pick the worms up as they are disturbed . Keep your garden clean and always use nematode a through out the season.

Steve and all:

Plant a bunch of Marigolds or Basil (or any strong, aromatic plant) in-between your Tomato plants. Once the season is over, chop up the aromatic plants and till directly into the soil.

Also, when planting your Tomatoes in the spring, place a collar around each plant buried 1/2 into the soil. An empty yogurt cup with the bottom cut off works well. This help keeps Cutworms from moving from plant to plant during the season.

Good luck,

Been getting a few ripe tomatoes for a couple weeks now, which doesn't seem bad for starting them so late. We could use more tomatoes, but I haven't figured out how many plants is "just right" to fill our in season needs. I just have 4 plants.

Over did it on lettuce. Shoulda' planted about 1/4 as much. Some beets are big enough to eat, and peas are about ready. The squash is about to occupy the entire deer exclosure. I'm learning that butternut squash isn't suited to raised bed gardening. Got basil going good in a couple pots and more cilantro than we can use, but it's fun trying out stuff that's new to me.

Got my starts a few weeks ago.
Have them sitting near the heat register and they are liking it.
Hopefully we'll have another great great summer for growing tomatoes.
SF

Ours are about two inches tall, growing inside in the window...shaping up to be a good summer for tomaters!

Fish on...

Todd

Similar weather pattern in the mid 90's my notes show blight was really bad the 2nd warm winter. Use new soil or sterilize your old soil before you transplant this year. Then cover the area and do not top water.

The fungus among us live and breed in the soil. It's spores go airborne to expand its range. The rain hitting dry ground sends them air born as do birds and bugs etc. WSU told me only steaming the soil in the spring up to two feet deep and an area 2x the height of the tomato plant in circumference at maturity is the only guaranteed way to kill the blight. You can replace the soil with sterilized soil or treat with fungicides also. If you have never had blight I would think being less aggressive in treatment makes some sense. I have it so I steam the soil with a big ok Bon fire every spring .

Seeing massive amounts of bugs already as well. Saw flies are already tenting in the plum trees as well as pear slugs.

I bought some plants at Costco about a month ago and have noticed some of the lower leaves are showing brown spots that are growing in size. I cut off all the branches that had the brown, but what to do next? It would seem it might be early blight but don't know for sure. everything I've read says to treat with a fungicide, but is that safe later when you eat the fruit? The cherry tomato plant(called 100's) already has some blossoms.

are the leaves cupping upwards?

seem to be

Could be bacterial could be fungal post a pic. Typically it's from over watering and or too much fert. If I am the removing leaves phase with starts I chuck them because it's hard to know for sure what it is and you end up fighting it all season then it ends in disaster.

The instructions for the treatment will tell you how long you have to wait before you can eat it. Fungicides and bacterial soaps are mostly considered organic.

exactly RR, can you post a pic Jerry?

it could be alot of things, curling narrows it to a few, but still difficult without seeing....


if you have pest problems, try the SNS line (Sierra Natural Science), very good organic stuff, not cheap however, but you wont have to worry about having concentrations of bad chemical deposits in your plants or fruits/veg....

Perhaps you should try to get a job at a nursery...

Anyone get there starts yet?
Plan to get some Early Girls 50's this week.

They did pretty well for me last summer. Hope for the same this summer.
SF

I'll get mine from my sister. She starts a ton in her greenhouse as part of her organic farm business. I'm making my tomato cold frame more permanent. I painted the wood framing to match my house trim and ordered heavy gauge plastic sheeting from some gardener's supply. It's supposed to last at least 4 years. The extra heat it generates seems necessary to assure that my tomatoes all ripen before the first frost. I need to buy some hinges and a latch for the door today while I'm running errands.

I will plant heirloom, sungold grape or cherry variety, and Early Girl. That should make for some good eating come late summer.