Tomatoes are subjected to many diseases and pests. There are strategies you can employee to reduce the risk of disease. While I can't guarantee you won't get a disease in your garden, these three steps will make it more difficult for soil born diseases to establish themselves. The main disease in my area is Early Blight. Follow these three steps for a better year of gardening.
Three Tips to Preventing Tomato Diseases:
Mulching, Pruning, and Watering
by Gary Pilarchik LCSW-C
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Mulching: A Disease Barrier
Mulching is used to create a barrier between your tomato plant's leaves and the soil. Early Blight is soil born. Many diseases are soil born. The spores go from the ground to the lower leaves of your tomato plant. You may have noticed how diseases progress upward through a tomato plant.
Absolutely mulch. It is your first line of defense against tomato diseases. Mulch covers the soil and spores and creates a barrier. I suggest, as in the pictures below, you use grass clippings. Always use freshly cut grass and you will reduce the smell factor. Add 2 inches of green grass clipping beneath your tomato plant and in the surrounding area. When that grass dries and yellows, add another 2 inches of green grass clippings when you cut the grass next time. You can continue this throughout the year.
If you don't have grass. You can use hay, hardwood mulch, and even newspaper. One efffective strategy I recommend is putting a layer of newspaper down as a solid barrier and then putting the green grass clippings or other material on that. Mulch creates a disease barrier.
Pruning: A Disease Gap
I prune the bottom leaves off my tomato plants as they grow. I often create a 12-18 inch gap of no leaves between the soil and the first leaves on my tomatoes. This is a gap to prevent disease. It is your second line of defense against tomato diseases. As stated, many diseases like Early Blight are spread through spores. The spores harbor in the soil and wait to make contact with the leaves of tomatoes.
Creating a gap between the soil and first set of leaves on your plants, makes it harder for the spores to get a foothold on your tomatoes.
In this picture you see the Delicious tomato variety. It has not been pruned and you can see how low the leaves are to the ground. A disease ladder waiting to happen.
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| Mulched but Not Bottom Pruned |
You can't have issues pruning back your tomatoes. I know it seems wrong to remove lush growth. It isn't. That lush growth will become disease fodder. Remove it like I did. You can cut or snap off the unwanted growth.
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| Bottom Leaves are Pruned |
You can see the pile I removed. It was a lot. I removed suckers and leaves. The tomato is well on its way to being pruned to create at least a 1 foot barrier between the ground and its first leaves. I will prune it again after some more growth. I stopped at this point to give it another weeks worth of development. You don't want to over prune to quickly.
Watering: The Main Trigger
Water is the main mechanism that gets the spores from the ground to the tomato leaves. Human hands and wind can also do it. Hard rain and over-head watering splashes soil up onto the leaves of the tomato. It is that simple. Splashing spreads spores. The mulch and pruning creates defenses against soil splashing. You can help your cause of disease prevention by making sure you water from the bottom of the plants and don't splash soil onto your tomatoes.
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