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ladygish

Weird tomato problem??

ladygish
13 years ago

This is my first time growing anything so I apologize if this is obvious but I couldn't find anything online except for an unanswered question describing my problem. There weren't any pictures of it either.

I planted seeds outdoors in a container and then transplanted the seedlings to garden soil bags (I read suggestions in a couple places to grow 3 plants per bag). Some of my seedlings didn't seem to be doing as well so I waited a little longer to transplant them to the bags. The 3 plants I transferred first shot off and were doing great. Then I moved the other 3 plants into their bag and they took off as well (though they're still smaller). My biggest plant is still well under a foot, probably because I started them in late April.

A few days ago, out of nowhere, we had this ridiculous wind storm. It didn't last long and when I went outside, the 3 biggest plants (all in the same bag) were leaning terribly. The smaller plants are still totally straight. I didn't know if it's okay to straighten them or not but their leaves are touching the soil. Today I noticed one of the plants looked really bad. It's leaves are wilted and the stem looks diseased. I very gently tried to straighten it a bit and the whole plant snapped right off at the soil line!

Now that I have it inside, I can see where the stem looks like the skin split away. These "sores" go up all sides of the stem but they are worse on one side. I can see the inside of the stem and it looks dried out. I've been watering daily except when it rains (which has been a lot lately). There are 2 fairly deep splits in the very bottom of the stem. There are also some tiny holes in the leaves but I don't know if it's related or not. Oh and I don't know if it matters or not but these are heirloom tomatoes.

Does anyone know what this is? Or even if it's likely to be from an insect or fungus or what? Should I move my smaller plants away from the blown over plants? How far apart should they be?

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