Thursday, June 17, 2010

"The Wilt"

Here at the G*r*t household, space is a little limited, inside and out.  While this is very cozy, it leaves us using every square inch and pushes our storage creativity.  On the South side of our house, Jon has ingeniously put a garden.  It is a long narrow garden with a small herb section down one side finished out by flowers and the other side is our "salsa" garden.  We try to grow different variety of tomatoes, bell peppers and lots of different hot peppers. It has a cute brick path down the middle. 

It always feels very magical to me, sure more space would be nice, but weeding it is a cinch (mostly because Jon weeds).
Adia went out with me this morning and we saw that EEK, our tomato plants are having the same problem they did last year!  They spring up beautifully and I get so excited about having fresh tomatoes and then...dun, dun, dun.  They start to wilt.  Not every stem of the plant.  It is the oddest thing.  Take a look...
And Jon, my dear green-thumbed husband is at a loss for what to do.  We treated for the typical problems.  The tomatoes rot as they ripen.  One of Jon's clients was up last year and we had her look at them.  She said, "Oh, you have 'the wilt'".  That's it, diagnosed, we have 'the wilt'.
  I don't want 'the wilt'.
I want big, fat, juicy tomatoes. 

Our neighbors plants were very close to ours and were fine.  (She shared her bounty with us).  :)

All of you gardeners out there, what would you do?

Adia got so sleepy outside.  She was pulling leaves off a chili plant while she could hardly keep her eyes open! 

So, if you have any ideas, Jada says,
"Call Me!"
or you can just leave a comment.  Her phone gets poor reception.

4 comments:

Kristen said...

Ames, mine wilt in the middle of the day when it's really hot, but then are fine in the morning and evening. Now you are making me nervous that they might now produce good tomatoes! I hope they do. I'll share mine if they are nice. :)

Mindy said...

I would water them.

j/k, I'm sure you do. :) Being the "tomato genius" I am I thought "Why not Google it?!" :) So I did. There were actually a lot of things that came up for "wilting tomato plants" so I think you should Google it too and look into it.

There were a few diseases mentioned and also there is a type of insect that tunnels into the stem and causes it to wilt. Hope that can help you a bit and you can find some good information! Good luck!

Joy said...

Ame...I used to have to "spray" the garden for bugs, but when I got to the tomatoes, I had to spray for bugs and blight. "Blight" is a type of fungus I believe and will destroy a tomato. You can get powder to mix in water in the garden section. The key is that you have to spray proactively, meaning early and constantly, b4 it's too late. Hope this helps...LOVE YOUR GIRLIES! - Jason

Justin & Sarah said...

Amy, as always you have such a talent at blogging. Wish I knew more about plants, but alas I did not inherit the Gerst-green-thumb. :) However, I must say that I got a kick out of Adia falling asleep while pulling the leaves off a plant. LOL They are just too cute!!