Fusarium? DISEASE! Losing my mind and ready to quit...

How did the pioneers ever grow anything?  
    I am being plagued by disease in my garden.  For the most part, I started my own seeds indoors this year,  These plants are thriving.  I picked up three basil plants and three jalapeno plants on a whim while at a nursery.  I planted them in new, organic PURCHASED soil in a brand new bed. I will post pictures below what THAT got me.  They were in their own planters, thank goodness, but I am afraid that whatever it is will spread to neighboring beds.  
   My cucumbers last year put out a great harvest, then leaves turned yellow and the plants started dying off.  I ripped them out and disposed of them in the trash, not compost. By the end of the season, my beets, my chard, my everything had little round brown spots on the leaves. In fact, by the time early autumn every tree in the town seemed to have had thousands of round brown dots on every leaf.  It was like the whole town was infected.  Is there any hope?
I was just about to start my first Hügelkultur bed; now I am wondering if I can ever successfully grow anything with these diseases running rampant.  I have read that I should clean my shovels with bleach before going from plant to plant.  Am I back at work (R.N.) and have to use sterile technique?I have been mixing my own neem oil; but hope someone can validate how to properly mix and use it.
HELP!!!

FWIW, I think you may be expecting too much perfection.  The basil looks pretty good, just a couple tiny brown spots that may be due to injury.  And you say you had a good cucumber harvest before the vines died off, so maybe that is all the cucumbers had to give.

From here it looks like you may have too much moisture on that soil, and possibly your plants are “drowning”.

What kind of bed is that basil in? Does it have good drainage?

Also, I don’t know where you live, but here in my climate (zone 8-ish) is almost too cold for a big basil plant like that to be outside.

yeah, i suspect that it’s too early for basil or peppers to be outside just yet. without some warmth to push growth, fungal issues can be too much to overcome. i also agree that the ‘soil’ you have looks really wet - and that it looks like a 100% organic-material mix, which tend to hold a lot of moisture, sometimes too much! mixing in some sand or something else really well-draining may help.

Hi Susan!
Every year brings its own challenges. I just finished a year with powdery mildew like I've never seen before- things literally just up and died. Weather, I have no control over, and I just try to move to what works (for what it's worth, I grow my cukes under cover for disease control and mine were just like yours- produced like gangbusters and then just up and died, within a day or two, they were spent).
Unless you're going to grow under cover, I'd say don't worry about bleaching your gear or whatever. You can't stop spores, bacteria, etc unless you can stop airflow. Instead I think hugeling and composting is a great approach- give your plants great stuff to grow in and they will be strong and resist better. And if all else fails, try again with a new plant.
I agree about the weather, my mother is in eastern PA and she has still had some cold and crummy weather just over the last week. Basil is tender and likes to be babied, so the brown could be trauma or just cold unhappiness. Give it all some time, it's still early days for this year, and good luck!

Basil bruises easily, and they will also get spots like that from having water drops on heir leaves and then being in full sun.

That soil does look water logged, maybe you just watered it before taking the photo but it's possible you are overwatering and the soil is becoming anaerobic which is not a good situation.

There is also a lot of undecomposed wood in that soil too. It looks closer to unfinished compost than soil.

If it is fusarium, one approach to control it is using trichoderma harzianum, a fungus that can keep soil borne pathogenic fungi in check. Trichoderma h. is readily available on the internets.

Mk Neal wrote:FWIW, I think you may be expecting too much perfection.  The basil looks pretty good, just a couple tiny brown spots that may be due to injury.  And you say you had a good cucumber harvest before the vines died off, so maybe that is all the cucumbers had to give.

Hi! thanks for the response.  There was SO much disease in gardens around here last year that I may have prematurely freaked out. There have been some temperature swings; they're probably stressed.  In the meantime, I will modify the soil, improve the drainage in the planter, and rig a mini greenhouse for them.

Liv Smith wrote:From here it looks like you may have too much moisture on that soil, and possibly your plants are “drowning”.

What kind of bed is that basil in? Does it have good drainage?

Also, I don’t know where you live, but here in my climate (zone 8-ish) is almost too cold for a big basil plant like that to be outside.

Thank you for your help.

It was pouring rain all night.   The planter is a small one made from an old kitchen cabinet; the wood was eco-friendly, and I sanded it down anyway and lined it with burlap.  I drilled 20 holes in the bottom;  when I read your question about the drainage I realized that all other planters I have made had side drainage as well.  
I live in zone 7.  I put the basil plants out (hardened off first) when we had a warm spell.  Last year it the temperatures went up quickly and stayed there and I foolishly assumed....

greg mosser wrote:yeah, i suspect that it’s too early for basil or peppers to be outside just yet. without some warmth to push growth, fungal issues can be too much to overcome. i also agree that the ‘soil’ you have looks really wet - and that it looks like a 100% organic-material mix, which tend to hold a lot of moisture, sometimes too much! mixing in some sand or something else really well-draining may help.

Definitely right about the soil.  I have amended each and every one of my beds except this small new planter.  I bought this "organic raised bed garden soil" and dumped it in, trusting the label that said "no amendment needed".  I was hurrying, and now that I look at it closely and feel how wet it is, I really can't call it soil and it does look like unfinished compost (as someone else here noted).

I rushed putting together the bed, added drainage holes only on the bottom and not the sides, didn't pay attention when I filled the bed with store-bought media: in the back of my mind I noted that it neither looked nor smelled right, and assumed the warm weather would hold.  All those things show why I am still posting in the "gardening for beginners" forum.
A forum that I am grateful for!

greg mosser wrote:yeah, i suspect that it’s too early for basil or peppers to be outside just yet. without some warmth to push growth, fungal issues can be too much to overcome. i also agree that the ‘soil’ you have looks really wet - and that it looks like a 100% organic-material mix, which tend to hold a lot of moisture, sometimes too much! mixing in some sand or something else really well-draining may help.

Easily fixed tomorrow.    

Tereza Okava wrote:Hi Susan!
Every year brings its own challenges. I just finished a year with powdery mildew like I've never seen before- things literally just up and died. Weather, I have no control over, and I just try to move to what works (for what it's worth, I grow my cukes under cover for disease control and mine were just like yours- produced like gangbusters and then just up and died, within a day or two, they were spent).
Unless you're going to grow under cover, I'd say don't worry about bleaching your gear or whatever. You can't stop spores, bacteria, etc unless you can stop airflow. Instead I think hugeling and composting is a great approach- give your plants great stuff to grow in and they will be strong and resist better. And if all else fails, try again with a new plant.
I agree about the weather, my mother is in eastern PA and she has still had some cold and crummy weather just over the last week. Basil is tender and likes to be babied, so the brown could be trauma or just cold unhappiness. Give it all some time, it's still early days for this year, and good luck!

Thanks for the encouragement.  I realize that I made some careless mistakes with the soil and the drainage for my planter; I can fix that, thank goodness.  I am nervous about the disease thing, however. Last year was freaky.  I am directly east of PA;  I live on Long Island, NY.  So many people around here experienced the same thing as the cucumbers.

Susan

Nick Kitchener wrote:Basil bruises easily, and they will also get spots like that from having water drops on heir leaves and then being in full sun.

That soil does look water logged, maybe you just watered it before taking the photo but it's possible you are overwatering and the soil is becoming anaerobic which is not a good situation.

There is also a lot of undecomposed wood in that soil too. It looks closer to unfinished compost than soil.

Thank you, Nick.  your post specifically made me think back on my planter construction and soil.  I was pouring all last night into this morning; that aside, I was careless when I drilled the drainage holes and the soil (or whatever it is I bought) sorely needs amendment.  

James Freyr wrote:If it is fusarium, one approach to control it is using trichoderma harzianum, a fungus that can keep soil borne pathogenic fungi in check. Trichoderma h. is readily available on the internets.

Thank you, James.  First I will learn about it, then I will get it.

Susan

Thank you all.  
Reading through everyone's patient and helpful answers and assessing my actions, I was reminded of when I first became a nurse and would react before fully assessing.  


First and foremost:  DON'T PANIC!

Susan Mené wrote:

Thanks for the encouragement.  I realize that I made some careless mistakes with the soil and the drainage for my planter; I can fix that, thank goodness.  I am nervous about the disease thing, however. Last year was freaky.  I am directly east of PA;  I live on Long Island, NY.  So many people around here experienced the same thing as the cucumbers.

Susan

One thing to consider with cucumbers is whether they might have succumbed to cucumber wilt; which is a disease spread by cucumber beetles.  That tends to get my cukes late in the season, and can have a sudden effect.  I am going to try some odorous companion plantings this year to see if that might confuse the beetles. We'll see if it works out.

If Fusarium does turn out to be an issue, another approach to controlling it is to plant a mustard cover crop. Mustard kills Fusaria.

    As I checked into this whole situation further,  I realized that all other beds that contained early plants (including peppers and basil) were doing fine.  I improved the drainage on the bed, added my soil amendments, and then pulled up on of the basil plants to see what the roots looked like. It turned out that this originally lush-looking store-bought plant was, in fact, about 6 seedling plants crammed into one pot. All were sprouting from the same 1/2 inch area; I separated out what seemed to be the strongest and replanted it.
   

This seems like the right thread to post this in, but if it's not, please relocate.
I've had problems with my tomatoes every year at the current house (ten years of gardening here). Every year in August the leaves would start turning yellow, then brown, and the tomatoes would start having white irregular patches on them, which eventually would turn soft and burst.  By mid September the plants were dead, while others' gardens were still churning out the red orbs of deliciousness.

Each year I relocated the tomatoes, thinking it was something in the soil that was causing the problem, yet in every section of my garden the same thing happened to my tomatoes. I came to the conclusion that it must be "blown in on the wind", kind of like powdery mildew.  My other plants always did pretty well, just not my tomatoes.  The strawberries had red-brown spots on the leaves, but the fruit was fine.

This year I put up a wood fence and chicken wire, to keep both my puppy (Mr. Dig-a-lot) and the rabbits out of the garden.  I brought in an enormous amount of wood chips via Chip Drop. I put 4" wood chips on the paths, and about that much on all the beds.  I thought I would have a spectacular garden!

It was a spectacle, all right. Basil plants with brown spots on the leaves, which eventually turned yellow and shriveled up, the stems affected, too. The mullen and the sage and the onions and garlic (which was pink! when I harvested it) and the spinach and cucumbers, and chamomile and rudbeckia and, and, and... Even my raspberries canes.  The tomatoes doing their usual shrivel and die, too. The only thing that looked good was the oregano.  Rust red spots on the leaves of my apple and cherry seedlings, too.

The master gardener at the county extension thinks fusarium is the culprit.  Is it possible that the wood chips did this? And would fusarium affect virtually every plant in the garden?

And without using a ton of nasty chemicals, what can I do to fix my garden?  Is what lawn I have left infected, too (and could therefore reinfect my garden beds)?

Help?!

Hi Emilie,
It sounds like you had a pretty tough day. I hope you had a relaxing evening, maybe made a nice cup of chamomile tea or a very strong cocktail, whichever suits you! We all have days like this and like your post says... tomorrow's another day.

And  to be honest right up front, I've never had a chip drop. My community doesn't have that here and 12 years ago when I called all the local landscapers they each and all said that they could not guarantee that the trees they chipped weren't from infested trees or  trees that were sprayed or soaked with chemicals so I can't address that.

I don't know enough about your specific environment in Pennsylvania to offer very specific advice. And no one ever tells you that the hardest part of growing your own food if figuring out …. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY PLANT! However, and I'm not sure, but I'm willing to bet your problem isn't as big as you might be thinking. Often the problem is that they need more water.

Let's start with fusarium wilt. Now some extension services are much better than others. I don't even bother to contact my Arizona extension agent any more because they are no help at all. But there are many states that have exemplary extension services. And according to the University of Minnesota and many other extension services the telltale sign of fusarium wilt is.....”Peeling the epidermis (outer tissue layer) off the lower stem will reveal dark red and brown discolored vascular tissue”.  A telltale sign! This is their website on this issue.... https://extension.umn.edu/disease-management/fusarium-wilt . Check it out. I've worried and wondered many times if this is my problem and the results of this test always came back 'nada'.

I have pretty regularly had a similar problem but only with my beans caused by 'Bacterial leaf blight'. It seems it only affects beans but can stay alive in the soil for up to 4 years so when I rotate crops.  I won't plant there again for 4 years. (I've got my fingers crossed). https://apps.extension.umn.edu/garden/diagnose/plant/annualperennial/geranium/leavesblotchesorspots.html  

And the white spots on your tomatoes.... Like I said I don't know much about your particular environment there but I can tell you about mine. I live in screaming hot Arizona where it's 100-110 degrees most of the summer. (But not this summer. The monsoons have suddenly come back. Yeah!)  And that doesn't happen to my tomatoes because my tomatoes are my pride and joy and I treat them with kidd gloves. (The only things I have ever treated better are the 5 tiny little Neem tree seedlings I have growing right now)! My 50-60 tomatoes plants are shaded and watered and fertilized and checked on constantly. But my peppers, not so much. I grow 5-6 different kinds and they're great but I always rotate my crops and sometimes the peppers just don't get what they really want and they get sunburned or in agricultural speak.... sunscald. White spots that soon turn sunken and cause the pepper to rot. Oh well. Maybe this website can help you. https://ourgardenworks.com/white-spots-on-tomatoes/

Cheer up. Don't let this get you down and we can help you more if you give us more details about each specific plant and pictures would be excellent.

Happy gardening, my friend.

Hi Emilie,

That's a tough several years for you for sure.  But your observations may pay off in the long run.

First, do you save your own tomato seed and seed of your other garden plants?  In other words, do you buy new seeds each year or use your own seeds from the previous year?

Second, did you use all of your wood chips this year or do you still have a small pile of them somewhere else on the property?

Third, would you be willing to purchase some new tomato seed this coming winter/spring to try an experiment for next year?  

I agree,.....do not give up hope as sometimes it's just a matter of shifting some of what is in your garden to match and combat some of the diseases present.

Just a hunch.....could be wrong.....but I would start here:   https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-fusarium-and-verticillium-wilt/

Your extension agent may not have been entirely off base, but you may be able to sleuth through some options not only to answer who the culprit may be, but also allow you some growing success in the future.

Because *initially* you described mostly problems with your tomatoes alone, I was hedging towards Fusarium (I think Fusarium oxysporum being one such beastie on tomato).  As noted in the linked article, it's less common for Fusarium to affect everything in the garden....it's more host-specific in what it prefers to attack.  Thus, there are Fusarium oxysporum types that prefer tobacco over tomato, cucumbers over beans, etc.  Verticillium on the other hand tends to be less 'picky'.....and will attack many plants in your yard, hardwood or herbaceous, and will do so less discriminately.  Easiest way to do some of this sleuthing with tomatoes, if you are willing to plant some newer seeds next year, is to purchase a variety or two listed as "V" or "F"....or more typically "VF" which signifies "Resistant to Verticillium and Fusarium Wilt"  I don't know off the top of my head if there are heirloom or open pollenated tomato selections for purchase that contain these genes, but if you have a chance to scan some catalogs this winter, they should be easy to spot in the tomato description.

Ideally, you would *also* want to purchase some seed that did NOT have VF resistance for your test:  This is because all of the seed that you purchase likely will have been tested for the presence of both fungi and only that seed that is free of the two fungi will be packaged for sale.  By contrast, if you used your own saved seed, it may be contaminated from fungus from the previous year's growth.

The test then would be to grow "VF" plants in regular potting soil -AND-, in separate containers, the same seed planted into your wood chips + soil.  This would be compared to the potting soil and wood chip + soil into which you have also planted the NON-VF tomatoes.  If you wish to, you could plant similar pots with your own saved seed....preferably a tomato type that was hit pretty hard with disease in the previous year.  This way, you can compare the growth and disease situation for each of these combinations.  If the VF plants are the only ones free of disease, then you likely have either Fusarium or Verticillium confirmed.  If you wish to know for sure which one it is, you possibly might find a tomato variety that has "V" or "F", but not both, in the tomato variety that you wish to test.  With so many of your plants being affected after the wood chip drop, it could have brought in a Verticillium disease and you may have to find some creative ways to get rid of it if that is the case.

So this kind of sleuthing can be laborious and frustrating, but often quite educational in the long run.  Good luck and I hope you opt for experimenting next year, even as you desire a bountiful garden at hand.

Thank you both so much for the encouragement and advice. It really helps to get tips and to be reminded that next year may be a very different scenario.

I have never intentionally saved tomato seed, bc of the disease that attacks every year.  I have had a few volunteers, of course. Generally speaking, I purchase new starts, of whatever I'm going to grow, every year from an Amish woman who grows heirloom varieties without chemicals.  I have no direct sunlight in my house so I cannot easily/cheaply start seeds myself.  Items that are direct seed, such as peas, carrots, etc., I do buy seed for, sometimes from from High Mowing or Fruition, sometimes from Lowes.

I will definitely read those links and do the stem check.  I might be able to attach some photos to another post.

Susan Mené wrote:How did the pioneers ever grow anything?  
   

From my experience with 40 years of gardening. Much of the problems are fairly recent. I never saw a blight/Septoria problem till 11 or 12 years ago. When it dawned on me that this was a serious problem I quit buying seedlings and began saving seeds again. Getting the same variety in my multi variety selections also didn't help. Last year I had some health problems and didn't trust what I'd grown so this year I purchased seeds. Five varieties of beefsteak tomatoes. But I made the mistake of also buying 4 varieties of beefsteak seedlings from a local shop. The Mortgage lifter tomato was miss labelled. Instead of a ML I got a plant that produced small tomatoes, early, that came in pairs and didn't have much taste. Supermarket tomatoes!  I pulled it after the others began producing. But I don't see any difference between the blight problems of this year and the recent past.

My observations. The blight/Septoria problem effects tomatoes after the plant produces ripe tomatoes. if I set seedlings out up to 7 weeks late those plants aren't effected till they produce some ripe tomatoes. About a month after those set out 7 weeks earlier. I'm not sure what this means. Seems to me that blight blowing in on the winds isn't what kicks this off. Also seems like saving my own seeds isn't the source, or else the seeds I bought this year also carried the problem. But it's wonderful being able to pick ripe heirloom tomato off a plant that's a healthy green in late September.

A few years ago I moved my tomato growing to a plot a couple hundred feet from where I'd been growing to two spots in what has been lawn for the 15 years I'd been here. One of the plots got the problem the other, 25 feet away, didn't. I should say that a neighbors garden was still a couple hundred feet away. So because you move your tomatoes to a new spot in your 25 foot wide/long garden doesn't mean your going to get rid of the problem. It might tho help the ground you'd grown them in previously.

John Indaburgh wrote:
My observations. The blight/Septoria problem effects tomatoes after the plant produces ripe tomatoes. if I set seedlings out up to 7 weeks late those plants aren't effected till they produce some ripe tomatoes. About a month after those set out 7 weeks earlier. I'm not sure what this means.

Yes, I've noted similar with the Septoria on my tomatoes as well. My guess would be that is has to do with "source/sink" flow and reserves, but probably involves some phytohormones involved in the switch from fruit growing to fruit ripening.  Most of the tomato leaves, along with the green fruit, are considered "sinks" for the energy and nutrients that the plant is getting during most of the growing season, from both the root system and from photosynthesis.  When ripening kicks in, most of the older leaves go whole-hog into being 'source' leaves......pushing all of their own nutrients and photosynthesis products towards the fruit.....towards the next generation.  The leaf's own defenses become debilitated and, along with hormone shifts toward leaf senescence, become prime targets for final attack by Septoria.   I can't speak for Septoria on tomato, but in other fungus-plant combinations, it's been documented that the disease-causing fungus can be growing in 'stealth' on the plant stems and leaves....unseen and not causing disease....for most of the growing season.  Then, when the plant reaches a certain stage of maturity, the fungus turns towards a disease-causing state, which in turn is the fungal stage for producing spores for wind-blowing and for survival in the soil.  Who needs science fiction when biology offers examples like this! ;-)

Emilie McVey wrote:This seems like the right thread to post this in, but if it's not, please relocate.
I've had problems with my tomatoes every year at the current house (ten years of gardening here). Every year in August the leaves would start turning yellow, then brown, and the tomatoes would start having white irregular patches on them, which eventually would turn soft and burst.  By mid September the plants were dead, while others' gardens were still churning out the red orbs of deliciousness.

Each year I relocated the tomatoes, thinking it was something in the soil that was causing the problem, yet in every section of my garden the same thing happened to my tomatoes. I came to the conclusion that it must be "blown in on the wind", kind of like powdery mildew.  My other plants always did pretty well, just not my tomatoes.  The strawberries had red-brown spots on the leaves, but the fruit was fine.

This year I put up a wood fence and chicken wire, to keep both my puppy (Mr. Dig-a-lot) and the rabbits out of the garden.  I brought in an enormous amount of wood chips via Chip Drop. I put 4" wood chips on the paths, and about that much on all the beds.  I thought I would have a spectacular garden!

It was a spectacle, all right. Basil plants with brown spots on the leaves, which eventually turned yellow and shriveled up, the stems affected, too. The mullen and the sage and the onions and garlic (which was pink! when I harvested it) and the spinach and cucumbers, and chamomile and rudbeckia and, and, and... Even my raspberries canes.  The tomatoes doing their usual shrivel and die, too. The only thing that looked good was the oregano.  Rust red spots on the leaves of my apple and cherry seedlings, too.

The master gardener at the county extension thinks fusarium is the culprit.  Is it possible that the wood chips did this? And would fusarium affect virtually every plant in the garden?

And without using a ton of nasty chemicals, what can I do to fix my garden?  Is what lawn I have left infected, too (and could therefore reinfect my garden beds)?

Help?!

I feel your pain, Emilie.
I am still struggling with various garden diseases and pests. I, too, put up chicken wire fences this year for my own "MISS Dig-a-lot" and her brother (my daughter's dog; they live down the street) "Mr. Dig-a-lot".  Each year I conquer one problem and something new pops up.  All part of the process and challenge for me!

I am going to follow the advice James Frey gave me:

Susan Mené wrote:

James Freyr wrote:If it is fusarium, one approach to control it is using trichoderma harzianum, a fungus that can keep soil borne pathogenic fungi in check. Trichoderma h. is readily available on the internets.

and Peter Ellis:

Peter Ellis wrote:If Fusarium does turn out to be an issue, another approach to controlling it is to plant a mustard cover crop. Mustard kills Fusaria.

Like happens to all of us at times, this year has been one of grief and tragedy, surprisingly NOT related to the pandemic. .  I did the best I could with my garden, but could not put the amount of time into it that it needed.  I am focused now on prepping my garden soil for next year:  compost, cover crops, mulch, etc.  Hang in there!

John Indaburgh wrote:

Susan Mené wrote:How did the pioneers ever grow anything?  
   

My observations. The blight/Septoria problem effects tomatoes after the plant produces ripe tomatoes. if I set seedlings out up to 7 weeks late those plants aren't effected till they produce some ripe tomatoes. About a month after those set out 7 weeks earlier. I'm not sure what this means. Seems to me that blight blowing in on the winds isn't what kicks this off. Also seems like saving my own seeds isn't the source, or else the seeds I bought this year also carried the problem. But it's wonderful being able to pick ripe heirloom tomato off a plant that's a healthy green in late September.

A few years ago I moved my tomato growing to a plot a couple hundred feet from where I'd been growing to two spots in what has been lawn for the 15 years I'd been here. One of the plots got the problem the other, 25 feet away, didn't. I should say that a neighbors garden was still a couple hundred feet away. So because you move your tomatoes to a new spot in your 25 foot wide/long garden doesn't mean your going to get rid of the problem. It might tho help the ground you'd grown them in previously.

So much to consider.

I bought seedlings from a local nursery this year due to limited time and I'm done.  I have never had a good experience with these plants, and that is putting it politely.  My own seed starts need more direct sunlight; I'm pondering using my son-in-law's grow lights/tents.  Has any of you used grow lights?
I also have a feeling my technique for hardening-off seedlings needs tweaking.  I'm betting that I bring them out before they are big enough.  I put them outside all day and then bring them in at night for several days and then plant them.