Well you started your tomatoes early from seed, sheltered them through the cold months under grow lights, transplanted them with your best homemade compost, mulched them and now you just have to wait to see which problems will arise. Tomatoes are so easy to grow but there are lots of problems that can occur which quickly turns my “I can’t wait to bite into my first homegrown tomato” moment into “Ugh, what if I get horn worms!” “Ugh bottom end rot!” “Curly virus!” “Nutrient deficiency!” “Under watering” “Over watering!” The list of things that can go wrong keeps me up at night.  So I was reading some blogs the other day… minding my own business… not even worried about my tomatoes… yet. Until I came across this blog post from The Demo Garden Blog entitled “Watch for Disease in your Garden” with a picture of a tomato infected with early blight. Then I remember earlier in the day, I was talking to my tomato plants and I noticed the Striped German kind of had some yellowing going on (yes, that is a technical gardening term). I didn’t really think about it. Not until I read that post. Argh! Why do I read gardening blogs?? I was so ignorantly blissful not knowing the “yellowing going on” in my garden was a problem. Well I decided to tackle my Septoria Leaf Spot or Early Blight problem, which really isn’t much of a problem. I read the recommendations over at the Demo Garden Blog and decided to cut back all the infected leaves. It really was contained to the lower portion of the plant. I planted my Striped German right next to my Persimmon so I took a closer look at the Persimmon plant to make sure it hadn’t spread from plant to plant. Luckily, the Persimmon plant looks unaffected.  I’m not going to use fungicides on my plants and since it is has been in the mid 90s this week (and only going to get warmer in the summer months), I am fairly confident this wont be a long-term problem. Also I am going to be more careful when I water not to splash up water onto the bottom leaves which should help as well. I am going to do more pruning of my tomatoes this year to encourage more air flow. Thanks Demo Garden Blog for enlightening me!