16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

A healthy dose of fertilizer is needed stat! Preferably some liquid or water soluble to begin with and water it in well. Your soil sounds ok, but it looks dry, and your plants definitely need food.

Thanks, I put in some fertilizer today. Lets see what happens!

labradors/Linda, I don't think we can move the upside down container. The iron stake is pretty deep into the ground as it is, and slightly bent due to storm damage, so I am weary of moving it, and have it secured to the staircase with jute. I wish I could hang it off a tree or something stronger! haha. Also, I live in a co-op, and the tree is on "our" side. It also gets significantly more sun here.

How much, and what kind of a difference will it make if I transplant into a bigger container? I have read 5 gallons is the general rule, but seen so many people post online - and in person - with containers smaller than I am using.

Either way, I think by the stairs will become the permanent spot. The container is hidden from street level by a bush in front, and there is already an upside down plant, there, so it won't look random if it's up against the steps.

Agressive? Dang! I got cherries instead of bigger tomatoes for two reasons: I thought they'd be faster to grow, and I thought the plants would be smaller. ha!

Thanks, you guys!

Wild Cherry is a huge, sprawling plant. Here's a pic from an older GW thread (wild cherry is the one spilling out onto the ground:

Edit: Sorry, the original pic must be gone, but you can see the cached version in the link below.

Smaller plants would be Tumbling Tom, Cherry Falls, Tommy Toes, and a few others.

Here is a link that might be useful: original thread

This post was edited by conchitaFL on Fri, Jul 4, 14 at 12:00

Maybe in arid warm climate it is ok to let them sprawl . This way the roots an fruits will stay cooler. But with humid and rainy environment supporting tomatoes is required, if you don't want disease and rotting.
JMO

The leaves will come into contact with many more disease microorganisms on the ground. Good air circulation around the plant helps reduce disease, and there will be less air circulation if the plant is lying on the ground, so more diseases.

When I've had volunteer tomatoes in my compost area, the loss of fruit to bugs was many times what I would normally see with staked plants. And in those conditions, I could pick less fruit because the vines/leaves/fruit were lying all over the ground and many fruit were unreachable (unless I wanted to step on the vines/leaves/fruit to get to them).

Now that said, I'm in WNC, where it can rain at any time (at least, it can during the Wet Years), while you are in zone 10 -- and if that's a dry Zone 10, you may not have so many problems with critters on the ground as I do here?

Your plants look ok. The color is good. Sometimes the leaves curl due to stress of some sort, but it's not a serious problem, and doesn't affect production. Is it hot on that deck? How much soil is in the container? Container size? What kind of mix is it?

It looks like you have a few inches between the top of the pot and the top of the mix. You haven't told us what variety/ies you're growing, so we can't recommend how large a pot they'd like (and I am not an expert in that sort of thing anyway), but I'd just like to point out that if the experts say you need a larger pot, you do have room to add more mix at the top (tomatoes will happily grow additional roots higher up on the stem).

Copper Fungicide is good but not organic, I use Immunox Fungicide for Gardens, Straw is excellent, I use that plus grass clippings which is also excellent, I wouldn't use wood mulch, But I do know a guy who uses saw dust every year during the fall when he turns his garden over then in the spring just lime it real good.

I've never used cocoa shell mulch with veggies, so I can't say anything about that. Old straw should be fine (though sometimes straw is contaminated with clopyralid and similar herbicides which persist for a year or more; I assume your straw is old enough that this wouldn't be a problem -- but I can't guarantee that).

(See info here:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/fletcher/programs/ncorganic/special-pubs/herbicide_carryover.pdf)

In the same way, if the grass clippings came from a lawn which had been treated with Weed & Feed or similar broadleaf weedkiller, the tomatoes could be affected.

Shredded office paper is another possibility. Newspapers. Bark mulch is fine.

Wood chips (not bark but wood) are okay as long as they're on top of the soil rather than in the soil. In the soil, they'll use up the nitrogen the veggies need.

There certainly COULD be reasons to prune, such as a desire to put more plants into less space, as has been stated. Also, I have had Indeterminate plants that reached 14 feet and more in length in one growing season. This is a bit unwieldy. And, pruning can help with trellising, help open up air flow, etc. BUT, I guess what I am saying is pruning a plant will MOST LIKELY reduce the production on that pruned plant. So, I think that people who prune tomatoes to INCREASE production on those plants are most likely making a mistake.

This is my first year gardening so I am torn on the pruning discussion here. I do have a question though.

If anyone can answer me one question, I have one plant that just now decided to really grow vertically. It has 5 or 6 main vines but only two are near my trellis. Can I top the other vines to stop their growth(if not, they are going to end up on the ground or breaking off in a strong wind)? This information would be much appreciated.

Would bottom watering work for a container of this size? I did that back when they were in seed cells, but didn't consider it an option for large containers...

Sinking them into the ground would be a serious chore. I have raised beds back there too, and digging out all the rock that I seem to have in the ground is serious hard work. I just took an appropriate sized cardboard box which I had on hand, opened both the bottom and top, and slid it over the bucket. With the lids, it's just big enough to provide a shade ring around the bucket while the plant is still in full sun.

As far as watering goes, would poking some couple inch deep holes every few inches around the plant be an idea? Water into the holes so it has more surface area to absorb into?

You said "came out of the drainage holes at the bottom only a few seconds later"

That means the root zone is far too dry.

If possible, get a large tub, fill with water which will over the potting mix, and allow the pots to soak until bubbles stop coming to the surface.

If not possible, put a trickling hose on the surface and allow to drip/trickle long enough to rehydrate the growing mix.

Good luck.

Definitely aphids.

The plant looks stressed. Is it dry?

Linda

Thanks! Yeah, it does look stressed. I thought it was because of the aphids, but I checked, and indeed, it was very dry. I've been so afraid of overwatering I may have overdone it. Gave it a good watering, and will give all the plants a good spray with the hose, hoping for the best.

Dave,

After tasting them and seeing how big they get (some are as big as small romas), I'm happy about the mix-up :) Will definitely save seeds.

Sleevendog,

This is my first time ever growing tomatoes/anything edible, but as far as I can tell these are nice and flavorful!

After your own finding, I was also curious and google searched. There are zillions of pictures. Yours is 99% Black Plum.IMP

Another confirmation should come from the plants foliage , DTM, and growth habit.

My recent most favorite tomato fertilizer is Texas Tomato food. All I can say is wow about it, great stuff. One has to order it on line though unless in the area, but customer service is superb and delivery is in couple of days.

Here is a link that might be useful: tomato food

1- Variety is the first factor.
2- Care and growing conditions:
---- This includes a lot of things : Temps, Sun, Soil, Ferts,
Climate, Watering,
3- Reducing burden on the plant. Obviously, a plant growing wild, no trimming, no pruning, with zillions of flowers, tiny fruits.. is not going to produce many large fruits.

did not notice any aphids, but I picked up a couple of fat hornworms. However, hornworms usually just chew the leaves and new tender branches away..????

I don't use any pesticide at all. I am not aware of neighbors using it either, and they are far away

Pesticides wasn't the question and isn't the issue. Herbicides is. Weed killers?.

Dave

PS: hornworms will also eat into fruit.

Do you have other varieties growing under the same condition ? If yes, how are they performing ?

I have one tomato plant (Pineapple, seeds from heirloom fruit), planted out about 75 days ago that is just flowering while the rest of my varieties have many fruits. So I think that variety makes a difference.

As stated earlier it may be too much nitrogen which will produce robust plants but few fruit. Also if the temperature is constantly very high it may reduce pollination. After 70 days there should be tomatoes forming.

Recent professional advice I've heard says to wait a month after the last frost date. I tried it this year and my heirloom tomato plants are doing great.

I can't imagine waiting until June 30 to plant my tomatoes. Jiminy Cricket. If I plant on the "last frost date (May 31st)" I know I'm already late and will get a reduced harvest.

I hate peat pots. They seem to be great at growing mold and fungus but not the plants we want. If I buy Bonnie's plants, I completely remove the peat before planting.

The plants in your pictures are not happy, clearly. Definitely remove the peat pots and make sure they have the fertilization needed and not excessive water. Plants that look like that in NJ early summer don't need water.

Your plants may recover. But I never accept compostable material from neighbors. They lie. But at least yours admitted using them.

The first (or second?) year I planted tomatoes, full of beginner's fervor, I had some big herbicide damage midway through the season. I recalled that my neighbor (who is a wonderful neighbor) sprayed Roundup on gravel driveway areas (some of which were right next to my beloved tomatoes). Neither he nor I knew at the time how sensitive tomato plants were, and he probably didn't even know I was growing something like tomatoes at the time. Heck, I was using herbicides in my own yard at the time.

I believe my neighbor has every right to tend to his issues as he sees fit. Fortunately, he is the most amazing neighbor one could hope for, so when I explained to him what I had learned, and asked him if he would let me try to fix his weeds the next spring to see if I could solve both of our problems, he magnanimously agreed.

I settled on trying Preen pre-emergent on all the areas of his driveway that I thought were in drift-distance to my plot, and it turned out that he was even happier with those results than the Roundup results. He asked me what I used so he could continue it in the future.