Among lots of other stuff I usually plant about 6 different kinds of tomatoes each year, around 50 plants. I start everything from seed and always start with a few extra of each just in case some don't make it I can replace them early on. Planted out a dozen 'Beefsteak' tomatoes and they are all doing great in a big bed.
I had 3 beautiful Beefsteaks about 18" tall still sitting in pots. I dropped them out of their pots last week and saw lots of beautiful white roots that were filling up the pots and would soon be pot bound. So I pulled out a bunch of weeds and planted them out in a small bed that I seldom use. I amended the bed that day with a bag of organic dirt. It is the same dirt (not the same bag) that I used to pot them up in as they were growing. I've been using that brand of dirt for 3 years now with no problems.
The very next day they didn't look so great any more. And by day 4 two of them were almost dead! I freaked out a little and immediately pulled these 2 up, put them back in their pots and took them out to the driveway to get a better look at them. That is picture # 2.
Pictures 3 and 4 are a good look at their roots. I've never seen anything like this before. In the pictures you can still see some of the pretty white roots but the dirt has all these strands of brown something growing out of it? SomI began building my organic garden here in Sedona 12 years ago. Picture # 1 is just a small bit of my gardens so you can see that we really can grow stuff here. This is screaming hot and dry high desert country. Typical suburban neighborhood. There are/were no farms or ranches nearby, no chemical plants or manufacturing. This property and the ones around me have/had been largely ignored and mostly native for decades. There was nothing here before I came except for lots of pines, junipers, scrub oak, cactus, thorn bushes and lots of weeds. Surrounded by a 6' chain link fence so animals can't get in. e kind of fungus I suspect?? It seriously resembled brown shag carpeting. It wasn't hanging from the roots but from the dirt. Moving it around, the strands stayed firmly in place but quickly disintegrated when I rubbed it with my fingers. Every few years I have something really bizarre happen in my garden. I just chalk it up to.... this is high desert country and not many people grow here so there is very little good info on the internet, even on southwestern websites. But this seems so wild. I've seen bad nematodes and worms and ants kill my plants before but this is truly bizarre! Tomato killer shag carpet fungi! I would really like to know what killed these plants and where it could have come from. The 3rd plant is still out there. It is not dying.... yet. It is not growing but it is holding it's own for now. I also planted some tiny, little marigold seedlings there that day and they seem to be growing just fine.
If anyone has any ideas about what this is I would really love to hear them. Thank you so much. And happy gardening everyone.
Debbie

I am sorry if my post is difficult to follow. I wrote it in a 'Word' document and then copied and pasted it in it's entirety to this website. I didn't realize that the computers rearranged portions of the text. I hope you can understand my dilemma. Thanks for reading.
Debbie

Really need cultural information from before you set these out.

Just looking at your pictures, my first thought is that someone waited waaaay tooooo long to set these plants out.

And.... there's no way these plants were happy in those tiny containers if they were grown in the area where they were set out...

Therefore my suspicion is that maybe they were sheltered and shaded while in the pots to prevent the roots from being scorched in the hot desert sun...

Wouldn't seem to have had time to acclimate or harden off before being thrust into the outside bed...

When I look at the roots, I'm not seeing fungus...

I found your post at dave's garden... and I still don't see fungus.

https://aggie-horticulture.tam...

Stone is correct , way too small a pot.
Black pot absorbs heat, heat hurts tomato roots and if there is a disease, they will go pffft quickly.

Hi Stone,
Your garden blog is absolutely wonderful! That must be such a peaceful and serene place to live! All the flowers and plants look amazing. The hellebore are so beautiful. Everything is so beautiful! I am going to spend some time looking through your archives. Thank you for sharing.
Yes, they were starting to become pot bound. I always have so much to do and I'm way behind schedule. And they were so pretty just 4 days earlier! And I have dozens of pots out in the yard and they can be boiling hot in the sun. I keep them in partial shade to keep them cool, works well.
I can't imagine what else it could be if it is not a fungus. In the last picture you can see on the left side the pretty white roots in the dark black soil that was in the pots. And the dirt in that bed was/is several shades lighter brown then all that dark brown stuff hanging off the bottom.
It is bizarre. When I first started growing here 12 years ago I thought Mother Nature didn't like me very much. She would throw me all kinds of really weird and crazy curve balls. Stuff no one would ever dream of. But I finally realized that I am trying to grow in a very extreme climate. And sometimes, in fact fairly often, when things happen, it is in a very extreme way. My 3rd year the bugs found me. I didn't have an explosion of hundreds or thousands of bugs like most people would. I had an EXPLOSION of many 10s of thousands of them! Wiped out every single thing!! in my yard for 2 1/2 years! I always try to find someone else who has had the same experience to share notes. Surprisingly, sometimes I do find someone but most often I don't.
And yes, most things really struggle and have to have some shade here if you want them to grow well. I chose this property because it had so many big Juniper and Pine trees for shade but recently realized that these aren't nearly enough. I've been planting lots more trees (mostly fruit trees) and shrubs these last 2 years. I need to shade every inch!
This year we had 'spring'! I forgot what spring was like. It was awesome! We usually go right from winter to 100+ degree summers. I had the best artichoke harvest ever. Wow! They aren't very drought tolerant yet but now they are very heat tolerant. I left plenty out there blooming for some fresh seeds this year. If I can get some shade on that hill it will be even more fantastic. Artichoke Pictures.....drum roll....
Thanks for replying to my post and happy gardening and foraging.