16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

I would do as Edweather said: clean up the yellowed leaves and give them a good soak with some fungal spray (neem oil, Daconile ... ).
In the first picture, appears to ME that the leaves had gotten sunburn and subsequently died and dried up. Yellowing is just normal course of dying and I don't see a typical concentric rings there.

I trim any lower leaf as soon as I see one getting yellow. In that condition that leave is just a burden on the plant and might harbor disease.

I first posted this a little over a month ago. Since that time I have removed all the affected foliage and sprayed with daconil. It didn't help and this just kept spreading so I started pulling plants. Finally, today I pulled one of the affected plants and took it to my county agent to see if he could tell me for sure what it was.

He said that it is tobacco mosaic virus(which is not what I expected!) I have spent the last hour doing some research on it and it does look exactly like what is going on with my plants. Then I came here and did a search for it to see if I could find any more info and found several posts in reference to it that stated that TMV was practically non-existent in the US.

So now I am confused! Does my county agent know what he is talking about or is there some small chance that this is actually TMV?

Also if anyone can recommend any good TMV resistant varieties or other suggestions I would greatly appreciate it!!

Thanks,

Carly

Hi there,

I'm the OP, with an update (and what an informative thread this turned into!).

I fertilized and am doing the finger-in-the-soil method to discern when they need to be watered. Happy to report that growth has resumed. They're getting bigger, and more maters are popping up each day.

I believe I'm supposed to fertilize weekly now. True?

One last question--some of the leaves (I believe on the Amish paste, not the Brandywine) are large at the ends of the branches, and tiny in the middle. Is that normal?

As for the fertilizer, I think that depends on which kind you use. As for leaves being much larger on the ends, that should be because they have more sun access while the interior leaves don't get much.

Only kidding John. Yours are the best tomatoes in Z5 so far this year that I've seen. Thumbs up.

That is impressive! Would love a BLT on the 4th of July...
(Might need to replace the heater with an ac unit this year.)

Looking at my garden notes this morning i noticed in 2005 i had first blush July 25th and two full salad beds thriving...
Way ahead of that this year but nothing near what you have. But i'm NY5a in a mountain altitude valley...warming up and don't think i'll have salad much longer....

@ Plaidbird - yes the inner city garden is full of its own challenges - I have spent the last three years turning the narrow lot next to my house into a productive garden and usable outdoor space - I am lucky I purchased it when I did because it would have a house on it now If I did not. its not easy but it is rewarding. I am going to loose some sun this year to new construction too. Part of the problem is not having workable soil and part of the problem is trying to cram too many things into a small space conditions are never ideal.

Incidentally this morning I turned over the offending container to open up some draining and it was very dry - even at the bottom - I cut out the fabric enlarged the holes and watered - and water actually came out of the bottom this time - I think the problem has been the fabric no more of that stuff in that application - and perlite for vermiculite in the future -

I only container grow for the most part and use the 5-1-1 mix that you will find on the container growing forum and the link was given to you. The other option is to use something like Promix BX or HP, whichever is available to you. However, you need to add a slow release fertilizer and then fertilize with a weak dose every few days. Drainage is important with containers growing. I agree with all of the above, ditch the landscape fabric in the future.
Good luck!

Looks normal, atleast to me!

fruitee

I did transplants, not direct seeds. Started my cukes and squash indoors. The squash just exploded as soon as they got in the ground. Cukes were a bit slower but very quickly grew. Beans I direct seeded. I have raised beds, don't have any plastic or mulch. I worked in some fertilizer when I prepped the beds in the spring, did one liquid feed a month or so ago... The tomatoes I'd started were in 1 gallon nursery pots when I was able to plant them out. I started them in March.

I'm growing the toms this year SFG style, so I have them pruned to 1-2 stems and have each in 1sf. They've been doing quite well, though I am noticing some blossom drop on the brandywine and cherokee purple.

Ah, so the tomatoes were pretty big (flowers?) when you planted them out. Mine weren't started that much later, but were in 4" pots as transplants so were maybe 6" tall, some may have been 8-10" but I planted deep.

No time today, but I will post pix on the picture thread this weekend. They're growing very thick stems, lots of leaves (had to take some lower leaves off when weaving yesterday). Took flowers off a few that had them (1 Gardner's Delight I planted yesterday actually had a small fruit).

I've got pretty good soil in most of my beds so I planted the peppers app. 15" apart, indeterminates 20-24", and determinates in 1 side bed (experiment) 12" apart. But that's in 8" of composted manure. The last 19 I threw in yesterday are also in compost (leaves and kitchen scraps) but 2ft apart since the bed's not very wide.

>Of all the "how to prune a tomato" articles on the web, that is probably the worst one I've seen.

I agree! And the goofy cartoon pictures donâÂÂt help. They donâÂÂt even show what a real sucker looks like. The cartoonist obviously didn't know how to illustrate the text - which is unclear and confusing on it's own.

Is the utube video the same one with the guy with the sick, tomatoes ? The ones he cleaned up but forgot the ones in the background. Then says he did all this on purpose. I'm not going there.

This seems to be the tomato version of being Rick Rolled.
Too funny. :D

p.s. If you don't know what Rick Rolled means, just go Google.

As has been pointed out to you before, determinate tomato varieties are not perennials.
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No sir> All tomatoes belong to the same genus:

As It has been pointed out to you and do it again. (from wikipedia)

>>>The tomato is the edible, often red fruit/berry of the nightshade Solanum lycopersicum,[1][2] commonly known as a tomato plant >>>The tomato belongs to the nightshade family, Solanaceae.[1][3] The plants typically grow to 1�"3 meters (3�"10 ft) in height and have a weak stem that often sprawls over the ground and vines over other plants. It is a perennial in its native habitat NOTE: There is no distinction is made amongst the varieties.

It is true that in the non tropics tomatoes are grown as annual but fundamentally they are PERENNIAL. This is the same about all varieties. At any rate, either all tomatoes are annual or perennial. No exception in the fundamental genus.

The terms "determinant" and "indeterminant" come from statistical structure, loosely applied to tomatoes. The terms have much wider application in mathematics In tomato it just refers to the growth habit and FORM/STRUCTURE and its predictability.

FINALLY:

To claim that Determinant tomato plants just drop dead toward the end of season (supposedly implying that the indets live on) is just no accurate. And I am referring to the statement that I quoted. I do not know who wrote it. So this is not a personal issue with you or anybody else.

There are some dets that do produce all season, but not many of them do so.

From a biologic/botonic point of view the two, ind and det, are defined by the internode distances between branches that give rise to blossoms and fruits.

I'm always foregtting those internode distances, I'm not perfect yet, ahem,but I think it's something like 2-3 for dets and 3-4 for indet.

So yes, our garden tomatoes are all in the genus Solanum and species esculentum ( some use lycopersicum), the currant ones that many grow being S.Pimpinellifolium, But it was found very uselful to divide them into det and indet based on internode distances which does help gardners, whether commercial orhome gardeners, know how long the vines might be in terms of how they are going to grow their tomatoes.

And yes, sometimes when viewing many sites you'll see some varieties being referred to as semi-deteminates or even semi-ind, don't ask. LOL

Carolyn

Eventually the weight of the fruit will pull the stems down.

Yeah, eventually it should cascade down by its own weight. But you can provide some guidance.

Carolyn,

We are thinking of two different things : OP wrote:

>>>> the masses consist of thousands of tiny (what looks like insect eggs or mold colonies).Note the description : """ of thousands of tiny ... insect eggs"""slimy inside"""

So based on that description I was thinking of something like this :

As a follow up, yes Carolyn, it looks like you nailed it with the "dog barf" fungus. Thank you all very much for the info. In this case, I am glad to know it is nothing to worry about.

Happy growing all!