[Music] welcome to the Rusted Garden Homestead this video is all about using hydrogen peroxide to manage fungal issues on your tomato plants this is 3% hydrogen peroxide pick it up at your grocery store uh at your pharmacy and remember it's 3% the ratios that I'm going to give you are based on 3% it's really important because you don't want to overdo it because peroxide hydrogen peroxide could damage your plants we'll go over the ratios for kind of maintaining the plants and keeping the fungus off if you happen to get an outbreak or you don't use this regularly i'll talk about the uh ratio that you set up to manage outbreak so let's get started by looking at my tomato plants identifying some fungal issues and then we'll go over the ratios for the recipe for the hydrogen peroxide spray i'm in Maryland zone 7 my tomato plants and I probably have like 30 of them are doing really well we've had really weird weather it's raining today it rained all day yesterday it's going to rain all day tomorrow temperatures are fluctuating up and down by like 20 degrees the fungus for my tomato plants that I typically get are usually septoria leaf spot or early blight early blight tends to come later in July here and that's when I really up my spraying using the hydrogen peroxide but because of the colder nights and and a lot of rain the septoria leaf spot has been around you're going to be looking at your leaves for patterns now this pattern doesn't mean there's a fungus on here this could just be a die- off could be related to the excess water usually when you have a fungal issue it's a small brown dot with a yellow halo around there i will link a video in a video description that really clearly shows you how to identify the fungal issues most fungi kind of reproduce the same way leave the same pattern on the leaf different fungus may start browning out the edges of the leaves but typically it's a brown circle with a yellow halo and it's really important to be able to identify what's going on because when you're using the hydrogen peroxide if you notice that fungal pattern on your leaves just hit it with the spray it really does clean it up your leaves generally should look like this nice and green no patterns no issues no worries these plants do get treated with the H2O2 regularly the general ratio that I use for maintaining the plant first of all I spray every 10 to 14 days just for maintenance hydrogen peroxide is 4 to 6 ounces of H2O2 in one gallon of water or 3.8 gallon lers start with the less the lower amount with 4 ounces always test spray anytime you're trying a new spray test spray a bunch of leaves wait 48 hours to see if it causes causes any damage so I use 4 to 6 ounces in one gallon of water 3.8 L and I just spray the leaves soak the top soak the bottom you know try to spray in the morning spray in the evening um try to avoid direct sunlight but you can do that if you have to once you soak the leaves the hydrogen peroxide really actually cleans the leaf it doesn't stay on there it doesn't prevent fungus from coming and attaching itself to the leaf again it really just cleans the plant and that's why it works so well at you know taking out a maybe an outbreak that you have on the plants because you soak the leaves top side underside the H2O2 does its stuff plant is clean now maintenance again every 10 to 14 days I hit it with 4 ounces in a gallon of water and it works really well sometimes I still get an outbreak or you know I get lazy and I'm not spraying regularly when you have an outbreak I increase the ratio to 6 ounces in a gallon of water up to 8 ounces again use lower amounts to start and always test spray when you change the ratios i'm looking for signs for fungus on my plants and luckily I haven't found them this is my Juliet growing extremely well beautiful tomatoes forming in there this pattern like on the other plant is probably from the excess rain when your plants get weaker sometimes they will show the fungal patterns on there and that's because the wheat the leaf is a little bit weaker and it can't fight off the fungus what I'm really doing is I look for like okay I got this is it something to worry about and then I jump up to healthier leaves and there's no brown spots with yellow halos everything looks really you know green and I consider this really like I said from all the rain that we're having when I come over here this plant has the same pattern and the whole leaf is falling off that's not really a fungal issue that's something else going on and I really think it's related to nature so I'm not concerned about it all the leaves look good up top so overall you know I'm not worried about this plant but you can really spray the hydrogen peroxide anytime you want if you're not sure what the pattern is or you're concerned about it again four to six ounces in a gallon of water for prevention spray every 10 to 14 days if you have an outbreak what I recommend is increasing the ratio to the 6 ounces per gallon or eight ounces per gallon and then spraying every three days and doing three cycles so it's you know a cycle 3 days a cycle 3 days another cycle that should clean it up that should take care of any issues and your plant should be fine and then you could go back to a maintenance spray every 10 to 14 days here's some of my other plants and I really can't find the pattern that I'm looking for so I do really recommend checking out the video in the video description because you want to be able to identify the fungal spots that show up on the leaves early and then hit them with the spray some again the bottom leaves are getting some of the yellowing and interestingly enough I think at least I find it interesting is when a tomato plant is stressed out or it's having nutritional issues or something's going on it usually gives up the bottom leaves first takes all the value nutrition out of them and sends it up to the rest of the plant so I don't worry too often when bottom leaves are turning yellow because again when I look at the rest of the plants in my garden I mean they just look beautiful if you get a fungal outbreak it's usually across many plants and it's not like it's just you know a couple of leaves on the bottom you really see it showing up on the plants throughout your garden the closest I could find to identifying the fungus pattern there's a little bit on this leaf it's usually the brown circles concentric circles that means circles within circles and then a yellow halo around it the halo here is a little bit spread out but the fungal outbreaks often look like this but again the video description will give you you know really clear clear details on what it looks like so this is another area of my garden this is a tomato plant that is not pruned it's massive if you want to subscribe and follow me I'll be doing a whole video on not pruning your tomato plant the three plants in here each one of them are the same variety this was pruned to two stems this was pruned to a single stem and this tomato plant is left unpruned they're about the same age too and you can see how big the plant is and how how many more tomatoes you have check out the video description for single stem double stem triple stem pruning the peroxide 4 ounces into one gallon of water now you want to use this up right away you don't want to let it sit in here it the hydrogen peroxide will lose its effectiveness we're going to um you don't even really need to shake it just give it a swirl put the lid on pump up the sprayer and I'll show you how to to do the spraying i like making it in about a onegon batch and I want to go over the ratios just one more time for maintenance four to 6 ounces in one gallon 3.8 liters to manage um an infestation big outbreak or something infestations more insects to manage an outbreak 6 to 8 ounces in one gallon of water set the mister for a nice fine spray and you're just going to soak the tops of the leaves really well the bottom of the leaves hydrogen peroxide is two atoms of hydrogen and two atoms of oxygen H2O2 when the sun hits it it breaks down really easily into water and into oxygen so this does not stay on the leaves so after you spray the plant 24 hours later the hydrogen peroxide is gone the leaves should be clean or the Yeah the leaves should be clean make sure you spray underneath too and then you could put down your antifungal sprays that stay on the leaves like um baking soda spray you don't have to use both you know you could just do hydrogen peroxide every 10 to 14 days and manage your plants that way a lot of people will spray the hydrogen peroxide you know once or twice a month just as a maintenance and then they use the sulfur spray or well a wetable sulfur spray or baking soda spray and just to be clear those are antifungals you spray them on the leaves they sit on the leaf and they prevent the fungus from taking hold hydrogen peroxide cleans off the leaves so it's not staying on there preventing fungus from taking hold it actually removes it so you're spraying every 10 to 14 days basically cleaning the leaves if you put on the baking soda spray that stays on the leaf and it prevents the fungus from taking hold and whatever routine you want to do is going to work i always say just pick the routine that works best for your schedule you know if you can't spray every week or two sprays is too much just pick one or the other and stay consistent with it consistent spraying is what's most important the reason we prune our tomato plants is because they can get really massive and out of control so this plant I spray much more often with the hydrogen peroxide spray and you know I don't always get the unders sides the plants get really really big but I just soak this down you know I'm doing every 10 to 14 days and that really helps manage the fungal issues if you're in a garden that gets high pressure from fungus I would do both i would do the hydrogen peroxide spray and then I would put down you know baking soda or wetable sulfur something onto the leaves it really depends on the garden like I was saying depends on how much time you have but the hydrogen peroxide works really well to clean off the leaves and get rid of the fungus that's sitting on there now the thing is is when you notice little dots on the bottom leaves there's probably fungi on the upper leaves too so just because you just see it you know down here don't just spray here make sure you spray the whole plant because there's probably some fungus spores getting ready to grow and do their thing one question I get is when do I start spraying the hydrogen peroxide you can really start um when the plants are any size i mean I tend to wait till they're about that size maybe a little bit smaller i'm also checking them regularly for any problems on the leaves here is a smaller plant that went in later and you would just do the same thing it's perfectly fine to spray just soak the tops of the leaves get into the stem and then make sure you're getting the underside this is a really healthy looking plant it really doesn't need to be sprayed every week don't overdo it this would be a plant that would be sprayed every 10 to 14 days because there's really no issues on there the plant over here looks terrible not worth saving and with all the rain the water just pulled right in there and just killed that tomato plant off so I'll probably replace that with something else or just remove it and leave it as an open space but you can start spraying that hydrogen peroxide really whenever you want i would just pay close attention to your own personal time management don't set up a schedule that's hard to keep because you got family kids life work you know to to deal with be great if we could all just deal with our gardens and that's all we had to worry about but you want more importantly just to be on a regular routine you know don't put the pressure on to spray every 5 seven days every 10 days if you can't do it every two weeks is going to work you can also use this on pepper plants and I use 4 ounces in one gallon for my pepper plants i don't spray these every 10 to 14 days i don't have high pressure on my peppers here in Maryland um from fungus so spraying every 10 to 14 days isn't that often but I don't really need to do it so I just check out the leaves for those patterns of brown circles yellow halos but I use the 4% I'm sorry I use the 4 oz in a gallon of water and I would just soak the tops of the leaves down if I do notice a fungal outbreak I'll get a little be a little more careful spray the unders sides but I just wanted to show you this yes you can use it on your pepper plants too one of the points I wanted to make is just because you're spraying your tomatoes for a fungal outbreak doesn't mean then you have to spray your pepper plants the fungi usually attack specific plants that's what they like to grow on each plant has its own nemesis when it comes to the funguses that are you know in your garden so you can use it on peppers no issue i would do 4 ounces in one gallon or 3.8 L of water the tomato plants that I showed you were indetermined varieties they just continued to grow throughout the season these are my tiny Tims i sell these at my seed and garden shop they're in containers they are dwarf tomatoes and they're a little bit beat up from you know me not watering regularly but determined variety tomatoes get to a set size they flower and then they produce all their fruit and then they die off so your determinate tomatoes may look more beat up and they're going to look like they're dying that is normal i still give these a spray with the hydrogen peroxide because I still get fungal issues but a lot of the die- off that I see on my determinant varieties like this pattern up here that's just from lack of consistent watering and then just natural die off of this determinant tiny Tim so I did lose my train of thought but on the determinant varieties you're going to see the leaves start dying off pretty rapidly and that's not really from a fungal issue but I do like to hit them with the hydrogen peroxide a couple of times as they're growing keeps any potential fungus off of there i also like using the H2O2 because it's gone in a day and even if I'm putting down something organic wetable sulfur baking soda spray I don't want that on the cherry tomatoes i tend to just pick them off the plant and eat them as is but quick shot of the hydrogen peroxide manages the determinant varieties for potential fungal issues but remember they're going to get natural die off and they're going to be finished up after the fruit begins to ripen thanks so much for watching please check out my seed shop i sell tomato and pepper seeds $1.75 a pack all other seeds are only $150 and please subscribe and follow me i'll teach you how to grow food save money and have some fun right in here is my Juliet and it's growing up a cattle panel arch i like just putting one cherry tomato on each side of the cattle panel maybe one in the middle but it makes a beautiful arch and the cherry tomatoes just go crazy and they will climb all the way up to the top it'll be a nice tunnel of cherry tomatoes i walk from one end out the other end and I pick all the cherry tomatoes that I need and I'll show you what that looks like hopefully in a couple of weeks so far the plant looks great so I think everything's going to be fine thanks again for watching and again please check out my seed shop at the rustedgarden.com