SBMFEB. Yeah. I said it.

Yeah, so you'd think that 99 tomato plants would be enough for one person. I mean, *I* myself thought it was plenty.

Too many even.

Maybe.

But, alas, after trading/selling/gifting 94 of those plants and planting five of my own, I went out a few days ago and bought two more.

Why? Why would I go out and buy more tomato plants if I just had 94 of my very own homegrown from seed ones to choose from?

Because two of them got The Blight.

THE SHIT BITCHING MOTHER FUCKING EARLY BLIGHT (SBMFEB).

That's right. I roll out the big swears for blight. Swearing soothes me. And I've needed soothing.

See, it all started out when my sister was in town for Mother's Day. I was all proud to show her my garden and how everything was growing all great and look at these tomato plants that I just grew from seed and yay until what in the NO!?

Early Blight. I can't believe it! My own tomato plant a god damned shit sucking BLIGHT. OK, that made no sense. But - name the movie!

Yeah. Early Blight right there on my beautiful until this very moment thriving like a muther Brandywine Sudduth.

And then I turned around to lay my cautious eyeballs on the Hillbilly only to find that the redneck had Early Blight, too.

Oh noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo was heard throughout the land. Also, crying.

Thankfully, I checked over my Better Boy and Green Giant plants and they looked fine. No concentric circles of black doom on the leaves. No weirdness. Lots of happy blossoms. Fine.

Phew.

Sort of.

I consulted with The World's Biggest Gardening Book and found that you can try to organically treat Early Blight with a copper based solution and some pruning, so I tried that.

But all I ended up with were even sicklier looking tomatoes that now were denuded of their leaves and covered in the weird blue of the copper solution.

Then the SBMFEB (see above) ate what was left of my plants even going so far as to destroy the pretty yellow blossoms all holding the promise of future bi-color tomatoes and shit.

RUDE.

So, I mourned.

I petted their little remaining blotchy leaves. I hunted about on the internets for anything that might suggest that replacing the plants with other plants may offer any hope of a successful harvest. I found nothing and chose to replace them anyway. I had a little chat with these plants and told them that I was sorry that a cootie infected their innards even after I so carefully and dutifully tended to them from their very small seed births.

I then said a lot of other things that made just as little sense.

And then I went to the nursery, bought another Brandywine plant and settled for a Mr. Stripey because they didn't have Hillbilly tomatoes because they are not as awesome as my ghetto grow op, came home, shoveled out the dying, treated the soil with copper, added some amendments and an aspirin (I won't have blossom end rot, too, after all of this nonsense) and planted my new tomatoes and also a pepper.

What a Brandywine Sudduth *should* look like.

What Hillbilly looks like when it dies and then is replaced by Mr Stripey.

A NuMex Chili variety to hang out with the Jalmundo that REFUSES TO GROW PAST TEENY SIZE.

And now I'm waiting and staring and threatening and coddling and doing anything I can think of to keep these plants healthy and growing without other cooties.

Yesterday I saw some wilting on the Green Giant, but it didn't have any of the other symptoms of Verticillium or Bacterial Wilt, so I'm chalking that up to the sudden warm weather and need for water. So I watered it this morning a bit more.

BUT NOT ON THE LEAVES. That's how you get blight. And other wilt. And many horrible things that would give me nightmares if I were to go look them up on the internet so I won't.

So, please, cross all your parts that things improve around here and no other tomatoes or plants die any horrible deaths because you know I will freak out and this blog will turn into a sad shrine to my tomatoes and no one wants that.

So think good thoughts meanwhile looking at the lavender and my grapes.

*gooooooooooood thoughtssssssssssssssss*

*healthy toooooooooooooooooooomatoessssssssss*

*also graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaapes*