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I'm pretty sure that I've got early blight on some of my tomatoes. When I plant, I always remove the lower leaves and I use drip irrigation and mulch heavily. I don't have a very good crop rotation plan because I don't have a large yard and tomatoes, peppers and eggplants make up the bulk of my garden. I've had to pull up all my Stupice, a Giant Belgium, and a Wapsipinicon Peach because the plant wasn't outgrowing the disease. In the bed that had the Stupice plants, I also have a Rutgers and a Sungold. The Rutgers shows no signs of the disease and the Sungold has shown a little but it grows so crazy fast that it hasn't been an issue. When I prune, I sterilize my pruners in between cuts with alcohol and when I move from bed to bed, I make sure I spray my gloves with a little bit of alcohol. We're spraying weekly with Serenade.
Is there anything else I could be doing to help my plants out? I'm also wondering if I prune the suckers off my plants and root them, will the new plant already have blight if the mother plant was affected by it? And can you all tell me which heirloom varieties are particularly susceptible or resistant to early blight? Obviously Rutgers is working out well but flavor-wise, I'm not too impressed.
I'm going to see if I can squeeze another bed or two in my front yard next year so I can leave the beds that seem to have the biggest problems alone. Would solarizing the soil help? I've also been reading a little bit about Vetch being used as a cover crop and being of some help.
Thanks for any ideas!
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