It's been less than a month since I diagnosed my tomatoes with fusarium wilt. In that time they've continued to ripen, I've gotten about two dozen rouge de marmandes (minus a few more with blossom end rot) and several cereal bowls worth of Tommy Toes. But the plants went from this on January 17th:
![http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/tomatoesjan.JPG](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tbdiM1ggta5NDE0S6u5lGDHe9HOUuQGA-Ywr2nfCLlc7XT-TLO3Fc11STffd9pUPtpiKFDlbhVVFC6cWEba0Oxv0wPaphj_qKXS-0Aj6o130mSvaI4_54=s0-d)
To this on February 6th:
![http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/fusarium1.JPG](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ursQD7gfTe1U0GQKVokkuCHqvtMC4uBm6WbSbQyoqsN8dlecnq-pEGQ-B6O7_DozlfGm8GtlihA3YoVObPLbCVpPt1ZliMK2aTfdymwFdIHsXThjBohQ=s0-d)
The poor things hung on for a while but once they started downhill they went down fast. On Wednesday I picked another set of ripening Tommy Toes but the seeds inside were black. That's when I decided they had to go, despite a few more fruit desperately clinging on.
But when I went to complete my diagnosis I was in for a surprise. This is what the inside of the stem looked like:
![http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/fusarium3.JPG](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ur05o47jXBHS4xJhBGKsqeRMvJVKeIKB5ZUdOw3k7Q4wx7Mu0Zr-1aPqIqTlU_RVG5dbmitgXOmUnXpRLuI85ew26vdF2N086VCx5NPb8At12h9SDM=s0-d)
Those white bits are perfectly healthy tissue. With fusarium wilt they're meant to be discoloured brown, like this. So now I'm confused and frustrated. Did they really have wilt? Should I have pulled up the plants or left them longer? If it wasn't wilt what else could have made them cark it so quickly? And how do I keep this from happening next year?
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uvusUv_oMufcbjfj7KYRMqzI3yBrzrUfgZKcEYP3CQhbktJtskw_Miq9C51v4KmI2mCDTGDmuz8GgN09uF91W6N8zTV80Bxaz-GzaNxwGLi0qgkvsZ0FzUNz1XI3hIBVDUS9UgtPEBi-D4L_8=s0-d)
But when I went to complete my diagnosis I was in for a surprise. This is what the inside of the stem looked like:
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