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NILES , CALIF

What is a good disease tomato plant and cucumber plant? mine always end up getting sick and dieing.

1/2/2008 5:22:16 AM

Cincinnati,OH

I tried the Celebrity tomato. It did well for me.

1/3/2008 10:16:47 AM

Rochester, Minnesota

I am not an expert on cucumbers, but I do know that they are heavy feeders and have poor root growth. This means that you really need to feed them hard mid season or the plant will shut down. If all you are doing is preparing the soil at the start of the season, such as with some granular, or a manure addition, then the plant will use that up and eventually shut down. I don't normally recommend this, but for a cukes, I would hit them hard with a high N water soluble fertilizer like Miracle Grow when they start fruiting.

1/3/2008 4:26:48 PM

Rochester, Minnesota

As for tomatoes, there are wilt resistant varieties. I grow a giant Roma variety that does well. But nothing beats growing them in new soil with mulch to prevent the soil borne disease from splashing up on the tomato leaves whenever you hard water them, or when it rains. I normally have problems with celebrity for hardiness in the face of disease.

1/3/2008 4:41:35 PM

Boulder County Colorado USA planet Earth

I like lemon cucs, they seem to do real well for me.

AS far as tomato's go, the new varieties are resistent to a lot o stuff, but I prefer the old stand bys.

Contact your local master gardener program and ask them what varieties work well for them.

1/3/2008 5:31:05 PM

Bethlehem CT

I like the old standby open pollinated variety 'Marketmore 76' for a salad cuke. It's a prolific yielder of dark green cukes and it was bred for disease resistance. For Tomatoes I plant 'Better Boys' they taste really nice and are very attractive and large (1 pound plus). Stake them or grow in cages, this will help keep the leaves away from the soil. In wet years, in diseased soil you may have a hard time with any variety you plant.(the mulch will help also, as mentioned above.) The best varieties will resist disease, it doesn't mean they are immune from disease. One of the most important things you can do culturally, is to stay out of the garden when foliage is still wet from dew or rain.

1/3/2008 7:07:56 PM