Ask-a-Dave's-Gardener: Help Please! Tomato Plants Died A Bizarre Death!! Nightshade Killer Shag Carpet Fungi??, 2 by Debbiegrows

Debbiegrows wrote:
Among lots of other stuff I usually plant about 6 different kinds of tomatoes each year, around 50 plants. I start everything from seed and always start with a few extra of each just in case some don\'t make it I can replace them early on. Planted out a dozen \'Beefsteak\' tomatoes and they are all doing great in a big bed.
I had 3 beautiful Beefsteaks about 18” tall still sitting in pots. I dropped them out of their pots last week and saw lots of beautiful white roots that were filling up the pots and would soon be pot bound. So I pulled out a bunch of weeds and planted them out in a small bed that I seldom use. I amended the bed that day with a bag of organic dirt. It is the same dirt (not the same bag) that I used to pot them up in as they were growing. I\'ve been using that brand of dirt for 3 years now with no problems.
The very next day they didn\'t look so great any more. And by day 4 two of them were almost dead! I freaked out a little and immediately pulled these 2 up, put them back in their pots and took them out to the driveway to get a better look at them. That is picture # 2.
Pictures 3 and 4 are a good look at their roots. I\'ve never seen anything like this before. In the pictures you can still see some of the pretty white roots but the dirt has all these strands of brown something growing out of it? SomI began building my organic garden here in Sedona 12 years ago. Picture # 1 is just a small bit of my gardens so you can see that we really can grow stuff here. This is screaming hot and dry high desert country. Typical suburban neighborhood. There are/were no farms or ranches nearby, no chemical plants or manufacturing. This property and the ones around me have/had been largely ignored and mostly native for decades. There was nothing here before I came except for lots of pines, junipers, scrub oak, cactus, thorn bushes and lots of weeds. Surrounded by a 6\' chain link fence so animals can\'t get in. e kind of fungus I suspect?? It seriously resembled brown shag carpeting. It wasn\'t hanging from the roots but from the dirt. Moving it around, the strands stayed firmly in place but quickly disintegrated when I rubbed it with my fingers. Every few years I have something really bizarre happen in my garden. I just chalk it up to.... this is high desert country and not many people grow here so there is very little good info on the internet, even on southwestern websites. But this seems so wild. I\'ve seen bad nematodes and worms and ants kill my plants before but this is truly bizarre! Tomato killer shag carpet fungi! I would really like to know what killed these plants and where it could have come from. The 3rd plant is still out there. It is not dying.... yet. It is not growing but it is holding it\'s own for now. I also planted some tiny, little marigold seedlings there that day and they seem to be growing just fine.
If anyone has any ideas about what this is I would really love to hear them. Thank you so much. And happy gardening everyone.
Debbie