I went outside and dumped a watering can onto its roots, even though I don't really think that's the problem. I'll watch now and see if it starts to perk up.
One other thing I noticed- that tomato has some large branches that seem to be snapped off near the top. I'm not sure how that happened, I guess it could be squirrels. Or children. I'm thinking that kind of damage would cause it to lose water through the top? Or maybe if it was messed with when it was soaking wet, that would cause it to get pretty sick.
Now I do have to acknowledge that this is the tomato that was planted in the exact spot as last year's tomato. This is only the second year, though! It does not seem at all fair for me to only get one year out of an area, and then have to leave it without any tomato for 3 damn years.
I don't think it looks like Fusarium wilt. From the pictures online, it looks like that just shows up as the lower leaves turning a little yellow at first, and then it starts to wilt. This seems like it's just wilting, no yellow.
But if it is Fusarium wilt, there's nothing I can do about it. I can try throwing some compost on it, I guess. But it will just keep on going and it will be dead in a week.
Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's something weird and it really just needed that extra water. I'll dump another can of water on it and see if it helps. If it's not perked up in the next few days, I have to give up.
And then what? I mean, if it totally dies, of course I need to rip it up. I don't think I need to be proactive about that; it's not a disease that spreads plant to plant, right, it's just in the soil. If I end up ripping it out, I'll have all that space to plant something else, I guess. I'm not sure what that would be, actually. I could put one of the peppers in there. I kind of wanted to keep them in their pots so I would have a better chance of keeping them alive inside over the winter. Maybe it would be better to put in all the Basil starts. They grow well next to tomatoes, and I have a ton of them (12). If I had any Swiss chard, I would put that in there. Nope, just put the Basil in there. IF the tomato dies, that's what I'll do next weekend.
Other vegetable updates:
The purple beans are starting to produce. I got like, 12 of them this morning, and there are a few that are going to be ready in a few days. They don't seem as prolific as last year, but honestly it is kind of early. I remember last year the purple beans started significantly earlier than the green ones, but I thought that was due to their different locations. The beans are also broken off at the top, so whatever happened to the tomatoes probably happened to them. I'm a little saddened that they are only really producing near the top. It looks like the bottom 2 feet are not putting on any flowers.
The Swiss Chard are growing and stuff, although not as nicely as I'd like. That one Radicchio is still there, and it does seem to be heading up nicely. I don't know if it's totally eaten away by worms deep in there, but pretty soon I'll pull it out and see if I can eat it. I don't see any cool days or nights in the forecast, so I might just go ahead and pull it up tomorrow. And that frees up even more space, but not really a sunny enough spot for Basil.
The only other things in there on that end are the Parsley and the Chives, and they seem to be doing ok.
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