16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
I've been fighting the EB too, and the plant that seems to get it the worst is the husky red cherry tomato. My other plants are susceptible but that plant always gets it worse. The other plant that was really susceptible was the Bonnie patio tomato (which is gone now, RIP). They both have bigger thickish textured dark green leaves. My yellow pear cherry tomato doesn't seem nearly as susceptible and it has very small, smoother, delicate leaves. Maybe those bigger leaves take longer to dry after the rain because they collect more water, or the size reduces air circulation for the whole plant somehow?
The patio tomato wound up getting stripped of all it's leaves and then I killed it and made fried green tomatoes with whatever I couldn't get to ripen. I have been able to keep the EB in check on the other plants by picking the diseased leaves off as soon as I see any evidence, and I spray the whole plants down with copper spray until dripping. I have also brought out a fan onto the balcony to increase circulation, which seems to help.
seysonn - thanks for all the info!
My tomatoes and I are very much looking forward to the coming heat wave. I'm hoping to finally start seeing some ripen with the higher temps. Have you harvested any yet? I have lots of fruit, but no signs yet of ripening.
They don't look like they dried out enough to drop the blossoms. No yellow leaves or nothing like that.
And the pictures do not show blossom drop... blossom drop is when the entire flower falls off at the knuckle, no. Yours are still attached and just look like the flowers have run their course. Are you sure there are not small fruits inside the dried flower petals?
I've developed a little bit of a system for transplanting (or maybe I've discovered something everyone already knewlol). I like to move my plants out into the parking lot to get full sun and so I don't want to have to move a big pot until I have to. I've been using the black plastic pots that you buy for 89 cents or whatever. I buy them in several sizes. When the plant outgrows the pot, I water the plant really well and then I cut the bottom off of the smaller pot and place the whole thing in the bigger pot. Then I cut down the side and peel the smaller pot off completely, and fill up the rest of the big pot with soil.
Right now I have a yellow pear cherry tomato plant in a 5 gallon bucket and it has clearly outgrown it, but I am scared to death to attempt to transplant it. It is 6 feet tall, in a tomato ring cage and like 50000 bamboo stakes to supplement that stupid wimpy cage. It looked so small when I got it and since the tomatoes are small I thought it would be fine in a pot! (Which, now that I think about it, makes NO sense). Turns out they grow up to 12 feet high. whoops.
I have that for the first time ever this year. They attack the big red (or just turning red in one spot) "Mortgage Maker" tomatoes which are about 4-5" dia right now, only the ones near the ground so far but they ripen first anyway. I am sprinkling sulfer powder on the ground, putting out water for them, and most of all I check daily and pick the ones just starting to turn before they get deep soft red. Putting them in a paper bag in the house lets them ripen fully without being eaten. They do try to bite green ones too but with little reward. Last year was the hottest of any state ever in Oklahoma but this year looks to make up for it. Everything lush.
What animal eats only the red ripe tomatoes. These bites are big. Not rabbit or squirrel size. Today while looking at the deck I saw a big animal in the bush outside of the deck. It was big. Didn't look to be a raccoon but as big as one. It looked like it was trying to either get on the deck or back down this tall leafy weed. This creature looked big enough to take the big bites out of the red tomatoes. What is it and how do I get rid of it? Thanks for your help!
Just noting that Cherokee Green Grape was bred by Mark Korney, so not an heirloom and Box Car Willie as well as Mule Team, Pasture, Red Barn and Great Divide were bred by Joe Bratka's father and are not heirlooms.
But for me taste comes first rather than deciding if this or that variety is an heirloom, and that works for me but some others are much more strict about it. LOL
And the last issue I never want to see is a thread about how to decide the definition of an heirloom. Fact is there are many definitions and not just one accepted one. So when I see threads about that I just go read a good book and nibble on some great chocolate and watch some tennis on TV if it's on.LOL
Last so called fact. There are many many threads here at GW already on that topic and a search will bring them up for anyone interested, so we don't have to go through what Yogi Berra once said, which was.....it's deja vue all over again.LOL
Carolyn, is it vu or vue, my French is somewhat lacking. ( smile)
Correction, not all 17 varieties I'm growing are heirlooms I should have said some of these are heirlooms :). Sometimes my fingers type faster than my mind works.
This gettin' old ain't for sissies. I'm into growing a lot of heirloom beans not all but most so I have 'heirloom on the brain', is that a disease by any chance LOL.
Annette
If you get 8 hours, that is pretty good. 5 to 6 hours is on the lower limit. I get about 5 hours direct sun plus lots of indirect and defused light. Not perfect but I am doing ok. In addition to light heat is also a factor. If your highs are 80F to 90F that can help a lot. With peppers, higher temperatures is a plus.
I have a similar situation. I get lots of indirect light, and some dappled sun in the morning, but I get full sun from 10:30am to 2:00pm and full sun on the tops of most of the plants until 4pm. We are getting tomatoes, not a bumper crop for sure, but we are getting them.
Seeing a photo would really help. The diescription is just too vague.
It could just be cracking that has gotten infected with mold, it could be a fungus disease called Gray Mold, or it could be damage from tomato fruitworms.
Dave
I have 3 plants on the driveway about 2 weeks old. They are about 2 weeks into the 5-1-1 recommended by Al on the container forum. Mine are big because they were suckers from my garden but Al says that some BER is nearly unavoidable. I put a little lime in the mix like he recommends and when tomatoes first appear I water in a very little bit more to supply the calcium. Last fall I had two plants from suckers and no BER whatsoever.
OMG...I'm in East TN (Knoxville) and I have been fighting fungus non-stop. So much effing rain, and for days on end. All the containers fill up, and I'm dumping gallons of water off of my balcony every week. I have plenty of early blight and fungus gnats. I've had success controlling the early blight by removing leaves the minute they show symptoms and then coating the plant with copper spray. I wait a few days and then do it again. I spray them until they are soaking wet, dripping. It seems to subside after that.
The problem for me has been that it rains multiple days to a week at a time. Then it seems like a waste to spray because it will just be washed off the next day, but in the meantime the rain is just feeding the fungus. I've been waiting out the rain and then just spraying aggressively when the weather clears up. I also have a fan out on the balcony running to increase air circulation. It seems to help.
This post was edited by aphidsquish on Fri, Jul 11, 14 at 17:31
Well, what you have stated could be due to other reasons than just sun; Like, soil type, variety, nutrients ... Plants with less nutrients in poor soil tend to ripen fruits faster. But the plants and the fruits will be smaller in size. Probably , you are caring too much for those with smaller, green fruits and growing lots of foliage !
In my garden I start getting direct sun after 11: am.
Morning sun (shining at a low angle) is less intense than mid day/afternoon. So if you sun exposure is short, afternoon sun is more effective.
Welcome to the forum and to container gardening. There are many of us who container garden, myself included. It's another way to garden and has it's own challenges. I've switched from containers to smart pots which are fabric and really like them. If you go to the container forum you will learn a great deal about container mix, Al's 5-1-1 mix which many of us use with great results. Container Soils - Water Movement and Retention XX is the heading. Good luck and keep us posted. Are you able to put those buckets on something to elevate them a bit off the hot concrete? Also, fertilizing frequently but in weaker concentration is important with growing in containers.
Sharon
thanks Sharon
I have been thinking about putting them on some 2x4's to get them off the ground.
I have been using MG 1/2 strength twice a week.
I did not find out about Al's PM until it was too late. Will probably use it next year.