Hi, everyone,

This is my first year in a house and thus my very first garden. I started late in the season, so mostly bought my plants. My patio tomato and sweet hot pepper plants looked especially happy (or so I thought) when I planted them but now something is clearly going very wrong, and I'm so clueless. I've googled until my eyes crossed and still feel too hesitant to name what on earth is afflicting them.

The patio tomato has mottled purply brown splotches all over. I thought it was limited to one branch but it seems to be spreading. I plucked the worst ones off. You can see the pics below. My best googled guess was leaf mold, and if so, how do I treat it?

And them I thought it was just the patio tomato, but the pepper plants looks I'll as well. This wee pepper is completely covered in sooty mold.

And the people's leaves have a few white and brown spots.

I haven't seen bugs camping out on the plants. The undersides of the leaves do have some detritus that I assumed was dirt from a rather messy planting process but now I wonder if it's bug-related.

Any ideas on what issue (or multiple issues) I have? And can I treat it? I'm sorry I'd this is all rudimentary--Gardening 101 if you will--but Gardenweb has always been so much more helpful to me than Googling! Thanks so much!

Your pics show marked phosphorous deficiency - the purpling - as well as nitrogen deficiency. The odds are that the soil pH in your bed is heavily skewed out of line so any nutrients there can't be absorbed by the plants. A quick fix feed of a balanced liquid fertilizer will fix the issue IF your pH is ok. If not, if the plants don't improve, then you need to get a professional soil test done. Contact your local county ag extension office.

When plants suffer from a lack of sufficient nutrients they are susceptible to all sorts of disease and pest problems.

Feed them and see if things don't improve with new, good colored new growth.

Dave