A Sad Day Monday June 8, 2015

It is a sad day on the farm.... we got confirmation of what I suspected... the tomatoes have a virus and it seems like it is spreading.  The only solution is to pull them.

BEFORE

AFTER

We just pulled them all.  Some were four feet tall and covered with blooms.  The sun gold had already set fruit.  I get mixed reports aobut replanting but Dustin, the local agriculrtural coop guy said there is no need to treat the beds or frames, we can replant.  We will be behind the curve but will start shopping for more heirlooms this week to put in the ground. These were such beautiful plants raised from seeds by Chuck.  It is heartbreaking but we knew it was going to be a learning process.  It started when we pulled the walls of water off the plants a few weeks ago and Marge presciently said "that one has leaf curl."  We all foolishly ignored this and it spread.  It started with leaves at the top and/or extremities of the plant (not the lower leaves) and the leaves curled up along their lateral edges toward their center line.  Some then began to curl lenthwise downward.  A few were just begining to develop brown spots but this was after a couple of weeks of this curl happening.  My first research showed it could be due to environmental stressors (such as the radical changes we've been having in the weather) but on further investigation, all indications were pointing to some type of mosaic leaf curl virus.   These are all spread by insects; white flies, aphids etc.  Both indeterminant and determinant plants were being affected It looks like some are more contagious than others.  I've not seen an abundance of any of these since the tomatoes were planted but who knows.

Our plan is to start shopping for replacement plants tomorrow.  So sad but again, it is a learning process!