Avoiding or eliminating disease in your garden or greenhouse.

Our new friend GT from Indonesia has shared some really sad news with me. He has a large number of beautiful young tomato plants that are suddenly dying. First one or two leaves wilt very quickly, and within a day or so the entire plant wilts and dies.

The worst news is that there seems to be little he can do to remedy the situation - for these plants or for any others he might want to plant in the same location.

There are several diseases that can do this - the one he showed me looked like Bacterial Wilt - but there are several fungus diseases that are just as bad.

The only effective solutions seem to be avoiding getting them in your garden or greenhouse, or a complete and thorough disinfecting of your entire operation with something like Methyl Bromide, or perhaps solarization.

Methyl Bromide is a restricted chemical in most places now, and you will have to get a licensed pesticide applicator to do it for you, unless you become one yourself (as I have done). It is an expensive product and an expensive and time-consuming process, but so necessary if you become infected. Therefore, avoiding the problem is very important, and I will devote a separate post to discussing a couple of ways you can do this fairly easily, with almost no cost.