So, I'm rambling. My point is both of them have not seemed to grow in about 30 days. The leaves are curled upwards on both of them and I doubt it is herbicide damage because all the other tomato plants in the garden look good. I don't know why I used pots in the first place since I have enough room in the garden. Do you think I should just pull them and plant these in the garden or is there anything I could do with them in the pots? How often should you fertilize tomato plants in pots - in the garden I transplant with dry slow release organic fertilizer and use liquid fish and seaweed once a month. I'm assuming I need to fertilize more often with the pots. I posted some pics of the plants in question, sorry old camera.

I can't wait to hear your thoughts
Dave

You may be right unfortunately. Just can't figure out why the other plants look good - to me at least. The herbicide might not have effected all the tomatoes. I'm totaly organic with my lawn, actually better to call it weeds. 3 neighbors in the hood use TruGreen. Just saw TruGreen at my neighbors 2 houses down, he has them out constantly.

Yet, he has a good size raised bed garden and grows some great tomatoes. I don't know how this is possible considering they spray right next to his garden - unless he doesn't use herbicide with TruGreen. I find that unlikely - I am going to ask him today. I posted a pic of another tomato plant that looks healthy to me.

Dave

I use fish emulsion and seaweed alternating with Epsom salts. Using the Burpee XL Pro cages with one set of 2 foot extensions.

These plants average an inch a day of growth. I expect them to top the extensions by July 4th. I fertilize weekly and water every day now that the weather is hotter.

I also pinched blooms for weeks and just stopped about a week ago. Now, we have plants that are over 5 feet tall and growing with tons of blooms.

These face East and get sun until about 4pm each day. I also spray them with Epsom salts and water about once a week.

We had a ton of rain since I transplanted them into 15 gal Smart Pots. The great thing about these pots is they dry quickly and it is hard to overwater. So far I'm really happy. Also have 9 different types of very hot chili pepper plants and using the same approach. I just started using copper mesh on the stems of all plants to keep slugs off them.

To my inexperienced eye your plants look like they lack both nutrients and water. But, I am brand new to this and hoping my luck holds out. I made a ton of mistakes last year and did really poorly. Trying to correct them all this year.

JFHunter
Your plants look healthy and vigorous. I have the 20-Gallon Smart Pots. What area are you in and when did place the tomatoes in the pots? Do you just use liquid fertilizer? How quickly does your potting soil "dry" out and do stick your hands in and feel it?

The problem could be that I didn't use potting soil in the smart pots. I used a 50/50 mixture of Sweet Peet and compost from green materials. The mixture does seem to drain very well when I water but it does feel moist right now. But, we have had a ton of rain in the last month - 9 inches by my rain gauges in 30 days and 2 inches just yesterday and it hasn't had a chance to dry out.

Gary

Many people in the Container Gardening forum recommend 1/4 strength liquid fert every feeding, but every fourth feeding using plain water. The idea is that the watering in the containers flushes the nutrients out of the soil, unlike when the tomatoes are in the ground and surrounded by soil. Frequent low-strength fertilizing is preferred to infrequent high-strength fertilizing because it gives the plant a more consistent food source, instead of starving for a week.

New too, but learning. :)