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AlittleSalt · August 23, 2016

I pulled a Porter tomato plant yesterday Aug 22, 2016. It was a plant I started back in January from seed. It produced very well and then started showing the tell-tale signs of RKN a month ago. Branches started dying off as the high temperatures reached 100 degrees. I knew it wasn't right because I have over-summered Porter the past couple of years and they didn't lose branches. I cut the plant way back with only a couple healthy vines growing and then it rained with high temps in lower 80s for over a week. The Porter plant looked worse. I pulled it, and as I expected - RKN.

That Porter tomato plant is in one raised bed. Today, our younger child 'adashofpepper' and I pulled a Pruden's Purple that has been 18" for around 45 days. It was 3' away from a 4.5' tall flowering Pruden's purple growing beside it. Both planted the same day, etc. When I pulled it up - it had a tiny RKN ridden root system. We both said RKN at the same time. That Pruden's Purple was growing in our other raised bed.

Both plants proved a point - the RKN comes from our native sandy loam. That is what adashofpepper and I filled the new raised beds with. So, no, I did not introduce RKN to our gardens by buying and planting tomato and pepper transplants. Those two raised beds have never seen a store bought transplant.

I'm not going to solarize either raised beds as they both have perfectly healthy growing tomato plants in them. Big Beef, Pruden's Purple, Sungold, Rebel Yell, Early Girl, Porter - along with a lot of very good looking pepper plants. It is important to me to see those healthy plants have a chance to keep on growing and producing.

I am toying with the idea of planting both Elbon cereal rye and Mustard Greens in these two raised beds to overwinter. The idea is to keep them mowed on the highest setting of our Sears push mower, and eventually turning them under in February. Tomato transplants will go in sometime in March of next year. It takes green manure about a month to decompose.

As far as to where to plant the Mustard Greens to eat - there are 4 other raised beds that in the right growing conditions/temperatures would produce enough greens to feed a lot of people. But that is if it doesn't hard freeze - we are due for a cold winter - so who knows.

I want to add shredded dried oak leaves when we till or turn in the cereal rye. I've read countless books and even series of books on organic growing. It seems that RKN doesn't like organic growing. So many of those books call for composting at way higher rates of brown ingredients to green ones. Our gardens are going to see whatever gets thrown in it percentages, but there are a lot of oak leaves out here.

My idea is to use everything I've read to organically fix the problem - along with solarizing. If that doesn't work - next year we'll use duct tape.

August 23, 2016	#14
AlittleSalt BANNED FOR LIFE Join Date: May 2014 Posts: 13,333	I pulled a Porter tomato plant yesterday Aug 22, 2016. It was a plant I started back in January from seed. It produced very well and then started showing the tell-tale signs of RKN a month ago. Branches started dying off as the high temperatures reached 100 degrees. I knew it wasn't right because I have over-summered Porter the past couple of years and they didn't lose branches. I cut the plant way back with only a couple healthy vines growing and then it rained with high temps in lower 80s for over a week. The Porter plant looked worse. I pulled it, and as I expected - RKN. That Porter tomato plant is in one raised bed. Today, our younger child 'adashofpepper' and I pulled a Pruden's Purple that has been 18" for around 45 days. It was 3' away from a 4.5' tall flowering Pruden's purple growing beside it. Both planted the same day, etc. When I pulled it up - it had a tiny RKN ridden root system. We both said RKN at the same time. That Pruden's Purple was growing in our other raised bed. Both plants proved a point - the RKN comes from our native sandy loam. That is what adashofpepper and I filled the new raised beds with. So, no, I did not introduce RKN to our gardens by buying and planting tomato and pepper transplants. Those two raised beds have never seen a store bought transplant. I'm not going to solarize either raised beds as they both have perfectly healthy growing tomato plants in them. Big Beef, Pruden's Purple, Sungold, Rebel Yell, Early Girl, Porter - along with a lot of very good looking pepper plants. It is important to me to see those healthy plants have a chance to keep on growing and producing. I am toying with the idea of planting both Elbon cereal rye and Mustard Greens in these two raised beds to overwinter. The idea is to keep them mowed on the highest setting of our Sears push mower, and eventually turning them under in February. Tomato transplants will go in sometime in March of next year. It takes green manure about a month to decompose. As far as to where to plant the Mustard Greens to eat - there are 4 other raised beds that in the right growing conditions/temperatures would produce enough greens to feed a lot of people. But that is if it doesn't hard freeze - we are due for a cold winter - so who knows. I want to add shredded dried oak leaves when we till or turn in the cereal rye. I've read countless books and even series of books on organic growing. It seems that RKN doesn't like organic growing. So many of those books call for composting at way higher rates of brown ingredients to green ones. Our gardens are going to see whatever gets thrown in it percentages, but there are a lot of oak leaves out here. My idea is to use everything I've read to organically fix the problem - along with solarizing. If that doesn't work - next year we'll use duct tape. Last edited by AlittleSalt; August 23, 2016 at 11:31 PM.