Croton Free Library

What is wrong with my tomatoes

Every gardener over fifty keeps a rotation of disasters, and every year brings at least one mystery. Yellow rings on the lower leaves. The zucchini that flowers and fruits nothing. The patch that was fine in June and sulking by July. My habit used to be guessing, then overwatering, then asking the man at the garden center with a line of eight people behind me. The new routine takes four minutes. Photograph the problem, leaf, whole plant, the patch, three shots, and show the program, with the facts it needs, full sun, clay soil, planted in May, watered mornings, and the honest question, what are the three most likely causes and how do I tell them apart. It reasons out loud, which is the valuable part. This pattern with these spots, in a wet June, is probably early blight, check the underside for the tell, and here is the difference between that and the nutrient deficiency that looks similar. It tells you what the organic answer is and what the chemical answer is and which one the extension service recommends, and it does all this without a line behind you. The limits are as clear as the use. It is reading photos, not standing in your garden, so the diagnosis is probability, not gospel, and the extension service and the master gardener hotline still win for anything serious. But for the annual tomato argument, the machine has become my first call, at seven in the morning, in my bathrobe, with dirt under my nails, and it has never once made me feel like a bad gardener. The blight still comes. I just know its name now.

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