Ask-a-Dave's-Gardener: Last Year my Garden died; This Year??? Fungus?, 3 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
Hi Tom,

\" And the roof was brand new (not deteriorating). \"

My point exactly. A new roof would be likely to have a lot of chemicals in the runoff. Fire proofing stuff and fresh asphalt stuff.

\" Something is going on that hasn\'t gone on before. Tomatoes don\'t just up and die in July. \"

You are right. Something killed them. Maybe drainage is your problem. Maybe they drowned. Try digging a test hole, in the tomato patch, but not so close to a tomato as to damage its root system. See if the hole fills up with water. If so, drowning may be the culprit. Our natural soil here is a dense sedimentary loam, so I routinely add sand to my garden soil. I buy it a 20-ton truckload at a time to keep the unit cost low. Sunflowers like to grow on my sand pile. Parts of my garden have become sandy loam, and that increases every year. Sand contributes to good drainage. I like seedless tomatoes.

ZM