I call the phenomenon tomato troubles: the yellow-spotted foliage that falls off, or the plant that produces all those misshapen fruits. And yes, the attack of the hornworms, too, when you wake up to a lot of missing leaves one day. Or all of the above.

A few years back I checked in with the tomato man himself, Craig LeHoullier, author of the book “Epic Tomatoes,” to see what we can do even under such high summer pressures to bring in that delicious harvest, and since I’m hearing from listeners already this year about tomato troubles of their own, I thought it was a good time to revisit Craig’s advice.

Craig LeHoullier gardens and grows tomatoes in Hendersonville, North Carolina, these days, after many years in Raleigh before that. He’s a proponent of the straw-bale gardening method, which he also wrote a book about. He’s an avid canner of his fresh produce and teaches an online Epic Tomatoes course with his friend and mine, Joe Lamp’l.

Craig shared his key strategies for tomato success, and explained the different tomato troubles you might be facing and what’s behind them. Plus: learn the provenance of ‘Cherokee Purple,’ the beloved purple heirloom that Craig named, and was responsible for nudging into commerce (for which we all thank him).

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