Early Blight -- OH NO!

Over the weekend I found that some of my tomato plants have early blight. At first I was stressing out about it, then I did some reading and found that it's a common problem that can be fixed pretty easily.

Infected leaf on my Early Girl plant

First, I took a photo of one of the leaves affected on my Early Girl plant. Then, I posted it to Facebook to see what others had to say.

After doing some more research online and listening to what people were saying on Facebook, I came to the conclusion that I'm dealing with early blight. Early blight is a fungal infection that is easily spread by water or touching leaves. The spores use water to travel, so when you water they splash up and land on the bottom leaves of your tomato plants. The spores move up from there, infecting your plant one leaf at a time, including jumping to other plants if their leaves touch.

Unfortunately, I planted my tomato plants way too close together, so airflow is at a minimum and the leaves will stay wet longer, so I need to take extra care when watering in the future. Also, I hope to get some soaker hoses set up, that way splashing won't be an issue anymore. Then, next year, I won't plant my tomatoes in the same spot, as that will encourage blight to return, and I'll make sure to spread them out more than I did this time.

My plan of action includes pruning off infected leaves, mulching heavily with straw and adding soaker hoses so I can limit splashing. I think I'm going to prune all of my plants about a foot off the ground. Maybe closer, I'll judge that when I'm out there and let you know what I decide.

Some articles I read promoted the use of fungicides but I hope to fix the problem without them -- I'm going to try, anyway. Another way to prevent blight is to plant blight-resistant varieties of tomatoes, but I wasn't paying attention to that sort of thing when I was buying my plants. Maybe next year I will look for different varieties, or plant in a different area. Experts say to wait 3-4 years to plant tomatoes in the same spot if they suffer blight.

Resources:
Purdue:
https://www.ppdl.purdue.edu/PPDL/expert/tomato-blight.html
Mother Earth News:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/preventive-pruning-for-tomato-early-blight-control.aspx
Tomato Dirt, blog
http://www.tomatodirt.com/tomato-blight-early.html