Blame Mother Nature for the Late Tomato Crop This Year

Written by Patch Editor Karen Sorensen

If you're worried the tomatoes growing in the back yard are never going to turn red and the plants' leaves are looking a little unhealthy, you're not alone.

Nancy Kuhajda, who oversees the master gardener program for the University of Illinois Extension office in Joliet, says their hotline has been deluged with questions from home gardeners worried about their tomato plants. 

"They want to know why is everything taking so long? The answer is the weather," Kuhajda said. "Mother Nature is always playing a joke on us every year."

Last year, the problem was an extremely early spring followed by unusually hot temperatures and no rain. This year, she said, it was a lot of rain in the spring followed by cool weather and, now, a lack of rain.

All we need is a little sun, a little heat and some consistent rain, and those green tomatoes will turn red quickly, Kuhajda said. 

But, yes, it's definitely later than normal for folks who are typically eating homegrown tomatoes by now, she said.

And that deluge of spring rain also caused a problem: fungal growth.

The "freckles and brown spots," as Kuhajda describes them, that you're seeing on the leaves is actually fungal growth brought on by too much moisture. It won't kill your plants, but it does decrease photosynthesis and makes the plant work harder to grow and ripen its fruit, she said.

The quickest way to fix the problem is to simply remove those leaves and dispose of them. Do not throw them on the ground; throw them away, she said. Otherwise, all you're doing is spreading the fungus rather than getting rid of it.

If you prefer a chemical method to stop the fungus, just be certain that you read the instructions carefully and follow them to the letter, Kuhajda said. 
 
"Quite often, people treat plants for the wrong thing," she said. Or they don't pay attention to the "days to harvest" warning, exposing themselves to potential harm by picking and consuming the tomatoes before the chemicals are out of the fruit, she said.

"Tomatoes are the No. 1 crop for Illinois home gardeners," Kuhajda said. "And we're going to have a better crop than last year. But the plants are very care specific."

If you have a gardening question, call the University of Illinois Extension hotline at 815-727-9296 to have it answered by a master gardener. Or mail your question to Nancy Kuhajda at kuhajda@illinois.edu.