[Diana in Wisconsin]

What you have is called Blight. There are two kinds: Early Blight and Late Blight.

What you have is Early Blight, and just about every gardener I know battles it, including me!

Late Blight is the REAL killer - we’re talking Potato Famine magnitude. We rarely see it. It has to be ‘introduced’ to an area via bad plant material. It is not in the soil all the time as is Early Blight.

So, a few things you can do to slow it down.

Grow tomato varieties that are blight-resistant

http://www.tomatodirt.com/blight-resistant-tomato-varieties.html

When you plant your tomatoes, mulch them well. The spores in the soil splash onto the lower leaves via watering and rain. The more SOIL you keep covered, the less that will happen.

Which leads me to watering. Water your tomatoes right at the BASE; no overhead watering! Put that sprinkler away!

Prune the bottom leaves and stems from your plants as they grow. They don’t produce fruit anyway, and are a pathway for the spores to work their way UP the plant as it grows.

Plant your tomatoes with enough ‘air’ around them for good circulation. This also helps. Crowded plants will spread disease quickly to themselves and to the neighboring plants.

Copper Spray. It’s organic. When my plants are pruned from the bottom, I also apply a good spray to the bottom 1/3 of the plant, and continue to do so throughout the growing season...until I’m tired of it and the season is almost over and I no longer CARE if I see another tomato...until NEXT season, LOL!

This is all off the top of my head, so here’s a link to the basics for you, in case I missed something.

https://gardenerspath.com/how-to/disease-and-pests/early-blight-tomato/

[freemama]

Thank you SO much! I am going to print your answer and get it ready for spring.

[kingu]

I’ve fallen in love with the mini soaker hose line they sell for drip irrigation at Walmart, set up rings of it around the bases of tomato plants, little risk of spreading blight and awesome for getting deep concentrated soak and widening the root ball. Then again, we grow our tomato bushes tall, usually 2.5’ diameter and 5-6’ tall. Neighbors love and hate us during the harvest time as we’ll generally have about 8 pints per plant harvest every few days. Means for a lot of tomato salads in the neighborhood.