Pepper / Tomato Disease Help

[thegecko]

I’m in North Houston Tx. Lots of rain right after planting 8-9 weeks ago. All new top quality organic garden soil in deep raised beds.

I need help rescuing if possible all my new Super Hot Pepper and Tomato plants. Everything started out great until our nonstop rain for 3 weeks. These beds are 18in deep and drain well but the rain never stopped falling. I was trying my best to remain all organic. In desperation I have begun treating with Mancozeb 2 weeks ago. Not sure if this is helping yet or if it’s the best to do. I am still trying to definitely identify the disease.

Would any of you fine gardeners know what I should do? Can all be saved? Or am I doomed for this season? I have attached several pics to help identify the issue.

 

[CanadianLori]

I really think it's just mother nature's overzealous watering. The leaves only look bad around the bottom?

I too grow super hots. Hlad to meet somekne else whoe does this!

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Chuck]

What you are seeing is early blight. Normally you would only see it on the tomatoes but there are two types of early blight, one that affects peppers and eggplants too. South Texas is notorious for early blight on tomatoes and about all you can do is slow it down until you get your crop in. Starting soon after planting your transplants start a spray regimen of liquid seaweed about every 2 weeks and prune off the affected parts as they appear. This helps but you will more than likely still get it. On your peppers it is either early blight or Bacterial Leaf Spot. If it is BLS it will also affect the actual fruit by forming lumps and imperfections and will eventually ruin the fruit. This was not a normal year and all kinds of diseases are showing up because of the non-stop floods, cooler than normal spring and little sunlight. Most all of the problems we are encountering are soil born. Next year we will have to rotate crops. In your case you should probably solarize you soil as soon as your crop is in. You will not be setting anymore tomatoes except for cherry varieties so pull up and burn your tomato plants as soon as your crop is in. On the peppers, if you start seeing weird happenings on the fruit harvest all you can and pull up the plants and burn them too. Either replace the soil or solarize it. Hopefully next year will be more garden friendly

 

[Beth_B]

Welcome, @thegecko! Agree with your other respondents that it's either fungal (early blight) or bacterial and probably due to the rain.
http://www.tomatodirt.com/tomato-disease-black-spots-on-leaves.html

Looks like we're off to a very wet start to the growing season here and the last two years have been gloomy and damp too; not great conditions for the very sun-loving vegetables. I try to go mostly commercial-chemical free and last year used Neem oil (most good garden centers should carry it), which did seem to help. Even though the affected tomato plants looked horrible and were dropping leaves, I continued to have a pretty good harvest.
As mentioned you should at the very least rotate planting locations next year. That is solid advice even for disease-free vegetable gardens.

 

[Durgan]

Wet conditions over a prolonged period and cool temperatures are death to tomatoes. Peppers like it hot also. The crop is probably a write off.

 

[Corzhens]

Watering the pepper or tomato when the sun is very bright may cause the leaves to wither. Another is insecticides that is sprayed. But that photo of yours looks like a disease to me so you need to consult a botanist or a real farmer. Our problem with tomatoes and pepper is the attack of aphids. We cannot control the aphids that's why we are not planting tomatoes anymore. But with pepper, we have the patience to spray the leaves (with aphids) with water to drive away those white pests.