Looking for some post-season thoughts on my 2025 East Central IL tomato run. While I had a respectable harvest, my plants (except for the Sungold) nosedived by mid-August with leaf and fruit damage/issues.
- Varieties: Tomesol, Brown Sugar, Rosella Purple, Summer Sweet Gold, Raspberry Lyana, Tropic VFN, and Sungold.
- New This Year: I used fresh pine shavings (animal bedding) as mulch; I did not mix into the raised bed soil.
- Not new this year: I probably planted to many plants for the spaces; I did prune.; Rotation among beds shorter than recommend time between nightshade plantings (peppers). This hasn't seemed problematic in the past.
- Zero blossom end rot
- Stink bugs moved in in late July. I also had tobacco hornworms in mid-July (dispatched with BT).
Weather 2025: East Central IL had below normal precipitation in 2025 except for July. July was quite swampy with extreme humidity and high night temps (dew points in the 70s). Some locations in Central IL broke records for the number of hours spent in "oppressive" humidity. Tomatoes didn't get a break at night. Then August had a "flash drought" and almost no rain.
By mid-August if not earlier, the non-sungold tomatoes looked sad and crispy. I’m wondering if if the plants were just unable to recover from the July humidity/pest stress. Or maybe the stink bugs introduced some late-season wilt?
The sungold stayed green and productive (on new growth at least), but everything else seemed to quit earlier than normal. Though I notice some other tomatoes in the area that seemed to hold on much longer.
If the attach images reveal anything, what is it? Was anything conspiring against me? Was it the weather? Pine shaving? Spacing? If its a disease, I want to start planning for 2026. Thanks for any insight.
by functionalredundancy
Dining and Cooking