I noticed this on the lower leaves a few weeks ago and pruned it all off. But it keeps showing up and I feel like I am pruning in vain. I fear it is some sort of blight. Will it harm the fruit or just the leaves? Is there anything I can do or is it a lost cause? So sad because this is my first year gardening and the tomatoes are just starting to ripen.
don't prune. just ignore it. i've never grown a tomato that didn't have awful looking leaves sooner or later. it won't hurt the fruit one bit. one bit of advice, if you smoke, wash your hands before you handle a tomato plant. you can transfer a tobacco virus to the plant.
Thanks for the feedback. Glad to know that I am not alone with the yucky tomato leave. I don't smoke but my husband does so I will have to tell him.
Mine looked like that and they are fruiting up beautifully.
Donna
Last spring (April 2009) we had so much rain that the tomato fungus (blight) hit the entire northeast. The blighted tomatoes started getting getting spots like that, but then the entire leaf turned yellow. If they're not getting any worse, I wouldn't worry. Our blighted tomatoes got black spots that turned rotten on the vine while ripening. Most people lost all their tomatoes last year. We were lucky enough not to because we had planted different varieties in different locations.
This year they are fine, but every time we see yellow with black spots, we take out the scissors and hope for the best.
So they definitely got worse. I stopped pruning for a while but eventually it flared back up really bad. Eventually the leaves yellow and fall off. And the stems are starting to get spots now. The tomatoes are still fruiting fine but they are cracking because of missing shading from the fallen leaves and what I pruned out earlier. Oh well. Next year I am gonna rotate to a different area and try again.
