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I have an upper and lower garden. Both suffer from early blight. Last year, the tomatoes in the upper garden were plentiful while I battled the blight. This year the tomatoes were rotated to the lower garden. The upper got peppers, zucchini, summer squash, and cucs. Here is where it gets interesting. Some tomato seeds from last years crop germinated and grew in the upper garden along side the peppers I had planted. I left a few grow to observe. The peppers and zucchini were attacked by the same fungi as usual while the over-wintered tomatoes were completely impervious to it. One plant is touching a Cheyenne pepper plant with yellowed leaves and remains green from ground to tip. It appears the seeds that were impervious were the only ones to germinate. One tomato plant has several clusters of fruit I'm hoping will ripen enough to save the seeds and see if the genetics carry over to the next generation. I'll plant resistant varieties now but they are just that, resistant. They still succumb to the blight eventually. I've never seen plants this impervious to the blight.

They do some type of exercise with her eyes to strengthen the muscles. Tracking maybe? She was maybe 4 or 5 months old when we noticed she was starting to go cross eyed in that one eye. She went to the eye dr, she passed her vision test. She does have a light sensitivity when outside, I have that & wear shades on my glasses. Brandi found a pair of shades for her on Amazon, they have a strap that goes around her head. 😎 We just go day by day!!

Natural selection will almost always produce a stronger (if maybe strange) plant. There would be no problem saving the seeds and testing them next year. Just squeeze the seeds out of the tomato into something like a cottage cheese container. Cover it against bugs, and let it set at room temperature till it begins to grow a layer of sludgy stuff on top. Then scoop off what you can and dump the seeds into a sieve. Wash them off and dump the cleaned seeds onto a dry paper towel till they are dry. Maybe overnight. A waxed paper envelope works great to store them for the winter. Label them with the date and any other info that you may need. Store in an old refrigerator or a sealed container in a very cool basement for the winter. In the spring, if you need help germinating them, just ask here again or contact a Penn State Certified Master Gardener at JeffersonMG@psu.edu. That works no matter which county you live in. One Master Gardener grows lots of bush string beans, and has received pole beans for the second year. Sometimes what you grow yourself can be more to you liking, definitely cheaper and more rewarding.

I've found the same thing. "Volunteers" are much healthier than the plants that we grow from bought seed. The problem is that they get such a late start that they often don't produce fruit. I get early blight each year but it comes so late that it doesn't seem to have much effect except for a lot of the lower leaves brown off. This year the Celebrity tomatoes have septoria leaf spot and those are the only plants that are producing anything. Last year it was something, I forget what, that was rotting the tomatoes, peppers and egg plant stems at ground level. I think that was our fault though because we mulched with grass clippings that evidently brought whatever it was in. I identified it but can't remember what it was. Fungicide got rid of it but it was too late for many of the plants. It seems to be gone this year. The newer tomatoes are pretty much self pollinating so unless you are growing a hybrid it should come pretty much like the parent. It will be interesting to see what you get.

We're going to give the black plastic bags a whirl and sterilize the pots. That approach seems to resonate with all of the gardeners in training. 👩‍🌾👨‍🌾👩‍🌾👩‍🌾👨‍🌾 Thanks again for all of your help. You guys are the best! 🙂

Thank you for your response, I knew they had to be striated, but didn't know about the possible mutations. I have loads of irises in three colors . I separated and thinned them last year, gave lots away. .

Yes, I forgot that you are growing in pots. You definitely don't want to leave it in the pots over winter in case the pots might crack, and the soil needs to freeze and stay frozen. You might want to dump it out onto a tarp and then cover it for the winter. That should kill off any insects or diseases that might be in it. In the spring, re-cover it with some kind of clear plastic to let the sun sterilize it for a couple of weeks. Amend it and then you can try using it in the pots again, or just dump it into a planting bed. Sterilize the pots before refilling them. Clorox 2 should work fine but rinse it well. When refilling it, add some stones to the bottom (maybe 2 inches) a layer of thin landscape fabric, then amended soil, and finally a layer of mulch such as bark mulch one layer thick. Amend according to what you intend to grow in it.

With a black plastic bag. You might be able to get it hot enough to sterilize it.

If you really think that the soil in the pots is contaminated do the plastic bag thing again. If you think it was just stress just cover it up for the winter.

We are currently eating zucchini at every meal so I sympathize. When you garden you eat whatever does well that year unless you find a way to off load it onto what used to be friends.

I never noticed that she is cross eyed until this picture. My nephews eye was exactly like this when he was a baby. By the time he went to first grade it was pretty much corrected and never bothered him before it was corrected. Hopefully she will have the same success. She is really cute. Love the tutu.

Pick the tomatoes and let them ripen off vine. We did this for years before "global warming" gave us a long enough growing season to ripen on the vine. Just don't put them too close together as some will rot and it will spread. As a preventative to the tomatoes becoming infected also dip them in a 10% bleach solution. Some diseases will infect the tomatoes and some won't . Whatever the plants have they are not going to be producing more tomatoes so put them in a plastic bag and let it lay in the sum for awhile. This will kill most things. Blight spores die at 150 degrees F. Burning green plants is difficult and you don't want to let they lay around until they dry. No, don't douse them with gasoline!. Burning barrels and gasoline don't mix she said from experience. Early blight shows concentric circled brown or black spots and starts from the bottom up. Late blight is a wet gray spot that turns brown or black. It too starts at the bottom of the plant. Septoria leaf spot is another one that will eventually turn your leaves brown and it is prevalent at this time of year. It starts with yellow spots on the bottom of the leaves. They come through on the top and turn brown. If you have root rot from all the rain the plant will start to wilt as well as developing yellow and brown leaves. The problem is that all are these are caused by fungi that thrive in humid conditions and and are carried by water. See the problem? There isn't much you can do to prevent it this year and this late in the year I wouldn't bother with fungicides. You could remove and destroy the infected plants and spray the others. Depends on what you have as to how well it would work. At this point I was going to suggest growing them on black plastic then I saw your post. So 'nother whole ball game. I see no lesions on the leaves so since they are in containers you might look to growing conditions. We have had a lot of rain but it hasn't been sufficient to make it unnecessary to water pots that contain big plants that are in the sun. Too much water? Those containers do have drainage holes? Irregular watering can stress the plant. No more than one plant to a container? Sufficient air flow? Since they are in pots if they did pick up something it was airborne but now your soil may be contaminated. Fun, huh? You might look into blight and wilt resistant tomatoes. Google it. Grow them from seed. It isn't that difficult. Maybe the bio lab has some grow lights. Oh, and they did grow. Your tomatoes look better than mine. My garden is a swamp.