I've always been told the best way to get rid of goat heads is to make sure you mow frequently. And I assume the shorter the better.

Larry, you got any easier questions?

I can't honestly tell you what is wrong with the tomatoes. Being an heirloom , you may be on the right track with a disease.

But the size of them in such small containers may be stress and fertilizer deficiency. Also looks like some spider mite damage on a few of the leaves . white splotchyness(sp).

tomato problems are so hard to diagnose without a lab.

Bradywine may be more trouble than it's worth in our climate. I would pot them up into a container and keep them away from my other tomatoes for awhile. They are really big for a small container, so I would guess they are nutrient starved.

Some years I have had to move my tomato plants to 6 inch containers until I could get them in the ground. One year I had all of my peppers in gallon pots until I could get the spot ready for them. I tried to dig deep holes and move the entire root ball, but was sure I would lose some. I didn't lose a plant and they all produced just fine, so I guess I would rather have to pot-up one extra time than to allow them to get rootbound.

Just for the record....I always have more trouble with potato leaf types than I do with regular leaf, but several forum members that have a hot dry climate report just the opposite. I always wonder if it is a moisture issue.

I thought that I planted tomato seed way too late, but it has turned out to be a good thing this year. My problem is getting my hardened off. It has looked like it should rain any minute all day, but so far we only have mist.

It is depressing to look at ratty looking plants even when you have more than you need that look fine. I have some plants that look worse than that and I did it with fertilizer. You can do something wrong and get away with it with most tomatoes while other varieties are sensitive. All of my Prue tomatoes look like they should be thrown out. Are you sure you treated them the same as the others - potting mix, watering, fertilizer? You may have caused the problem somehow. When I grew Brandywines I got some huge tomatoes but very few of them. They also were late. If you have the space put them somewhere; otherwise you may have others more worthy of your water and space.

Thank you all for your input. I guess I will pot these up and see what happens. I started these seeds on 2-19, which I thought was a little early, I had no idea it might be 3 months early. I have run out of room on everything. These Brandywine are the smallest plants I have of the 2-19 planting. I have some Boxcar Willie I started on 3-25 that look like they will be about the right size at planting time.

Larry

Larry, I think the plants mostly look stressed and likely will be just fine once they are in the ground and growing. The brown lesion on one leaf might indicate a foliar disease but like Busy1 said, diagnosis from photos is difficult. Brandywine has the best flavor of any tomato I've ever eaten but sets fruit poorly in our heat. My best Brandywine year here was either 2002 or 2004 both of which had relatively cool and mild weather in the summer with great rainfall. If you can get fruit set this year on those plants, the flavor will make all the work of keeping the seedlings happy worthwhile.

Starting seeds too early tends to lead to plants that are unhappy like yours but they often make a huge turnaround when the temperatures warm up and you get them transplanted into the ground. The weather this year has been most unhelpful.

Dawn

Dawn and Helen, thanks, I also like the taste of Brandywine very well. I have grown them a time or two before and only got about 10 tomatoes per plant, but they were large and wonderful.

I have done a lot experimenting this year, even with potting soil, so I may have caused the problem. I have to think some of the problem is from stress, because all the plants I potted up into newspaper sleeves are doing great, but are past prime planting size.