|
Disease in tomato plants can just creep up on you so you need to be vigilant and take action at the first sign of a problem. Here are a few tips to keep your tomatoes disease free:
- Prepare your soil properly, making sure that it's weed free, well dug and with added nutrients suitable for tomatoes.
- If you're growing from seed, choose a disease resistant variety of tomato.
- If you're growing from seedlings, make sure that you only transplant the healthy ones so you don't introduce disease at the outset.
- Keep your tomatoes healthy, using a proprietary brand tomato feed, such as Tomorite, which should be applied in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions.
- Water early in the day if you live in a cool climate so that the foliage is dry before nightfall. In a hot climate, water after the sun has gone down so that the leaves aren't scorched and the plant has the chance to absorb the moisture over night.
- Keep greenfly at bay so that they can't damage your plants or spread other diseases from plant to plant. You can use either washing up liquid, well diluted or a commercial brand greenfly spray which will probably include a fungicide as well.
- Keep your whole garden as weed free as possible as viruses which live on weeks can be transferred to your tomato plants by insects or the wind or water.
- Check for signs of disease such as wilted leaves, spots on the leaves, cankers on the stems and odd markings on the fruit or anything that doesn't look normal.
|
