16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
Thank you all! You all sound so scientific! I'm merely a retired school teacher in my 5 season of organ gardening and loving it! I have used egg shells whole for years in my compost and directly in the garden. I have had my share of "black bottomed tomatoes" and few if any slugs...hummmm? I am trying the ground shells with vinegar this season in hopes of combating all the ills mentioned, as well as fertilize. I plan on using lime after reading this blog, and will also begin searching locally for bat gung! again, Thank you all!
Doesn't look like CMV to me - don't see the mottled leaves and the leaves aren't shoe string nearly enough IME - but then CMV isn't seen here much at all and a pic is far from ideal for a diagnosis.
I suppose it is possible and yeah it can be transmitted by aphids (it is supposedly not seed borne nor does it remain in soil per Cornell) but this plant was bad before the aphids came along. Been bad since day one, right?
But honestly, what difference does it make? It is obviously sick with 'something' and has been since it was a young seedling so why is it still growing? Still risking other plants? It needs to be pitched IMO but I suppose you could always cut it way back, check the pith in the stems you cut off, and watch the new growth to see what happens. Wouldn't tell you what the problem is but would tell you it was likely seed borne.
Dave
I guess I will never know what the problem was. Hoosier, is there really such a thing as a genetic problem. If that is the case, I will be so relieved that I haven't transferred anything to the other plants. And Dave, yes it has been bad since day one. And since I have known it was sick with something, I moved it out of the garden to an isolated spot and was very careful to not transmit anything to the other plants by not using any tools that weren't cleaned after use. But I Just kept hoping it would pull out of it with new growth, I really wanted to try this variety. I could post more pictures of all the growth but I won't. That was new growth already deformed. Lots of shoe string leaves on older leaves. It was pitched yesterday Dave just so you know. Thank you for all replies.
Jennie
Yeah many discussions here on this question that the search will pull up for you if interested. Personally I don't recommend anything less than 15 gallons for Brandywine and that would be the minimum. Yellow Pear (you sure you want to waste space on that given its many blah reviews?) might do ok in 10 gallons. I do banana peppers in 7 gallons every year with no problems but then I use an automatic drip irrigation system on them too. Anything less poses problems.
Dave
Did it go outside? Hard to tell in the blurry pic, but could be sunscald.
I was too careful not to water and caused quite a bit of drying out damage this year, with dying lower leaves like your second pic. Next year I will water the tomatoes indoors more. They are thirstier than other nightshades and do not tolerate the soil drying out like peppers do.
One can wonder about what is in this fertilizer besides NPK. The NPK numbers are just that. The amounts of N, P and K. But there is more to what you sprinkle on than N, P, and K. If this fertilizer wasn't over-applied, it's hard to believe that 2-4-7 would do anything bad, or even that noticeable.
Thank you all who responded to my question!!!
I dont know the variety, but it seems that might be a factor since a different variety growing in the same conditions does taste better.
the plants are in the soil and it is fairly heavy clay soil with some compost mixed in. The problem is probably that it has been raining a lot lately and the spikes must have dissolved a lot faster than they should have.
It would have just shown up if potted up with a new bag.
I asked since I had some tomatoes I potted up in Miracle Gro's Nature's Care organic line, and I believe the soil had herbicide contamination. My tomatoes looked like her pictures. This was entirely indoors and the tomatoes that were not potted in that soil did not have the problem.
I also then made the mistake of not cleaning my trays and wasn't paying attention to the ones that I had used when potting up the ones that I believe were in contaminated, and just grabbed a tray for some new seedlings. The tray had some potting soil in the bottom ridges. The seedlings in that tray all showed the same signs. Toms in a different tray directly next to them nothing. Moved these guys to a clean tray, but damage was done. And I get to wear a dunce cap for being lazy and not cleaning my trays.
jean001a(Portland OR 7b)
Doing a bio-assay will resolve the question of where the herbicide came from.
8888***********************88888
EXACTLY. Where did it come from ?
It is not established that herbicide was used, yet.
Did OP apply herbicide in his property ?
Did OP see a neighbor's property being treated with herbicide ?
Also the potting soil is not cleared up yet.
Where is Megen ? HMMM.
Sey
Actually I was wrong. Today I looked at the other tomatoes and they also have about 8-10 flowers in their first trusses. The flowers in the truss are developing from the tiny ones which I could not see last week. It is probably our local conditions: we have highs around 70s and lows around 50s, and it was humid here last week, sort of like a greenhouse. Season, you'll have this nice weather later in May, when we will be hit by the hot weather.
Some other tomatoes.
And another one.
It's a slimy raisin bug. I get them too. Still have to look up the best line of defense, though, but for now I'm squishing them but more keep coming back.
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5147/5780953659_d0db3c65ba_z.jpg
Well i was debating on what to plant in some un-used corners of two plots, i guess it won't be Fourth of July. I now have over a dozen slightly overgrown FOJ starts that i'll try to give away.
I'll probably throw some leftover purple-pink hearts into those spots instead, they should be a bit better for canning blends. Or come to think of it, i have a couple of extra Joe's Portuguese , maybe i'll just go with both.
Thank you for the heads up on FOJ all.
Steve
Know the characteristics of your growing season so that you can adapt to it. Not just USDA zone, but also length (number of frost-free days), the temperatures you can expect over the season, and heat intensity.
Here in Northern NV, on the wrong side of the Sierras, we have a short, intense, highly variable season. Length of frost-free days has a range of 90-120 days, but they are not necessarily consecutive. It's normal to have a 30-40 degree swing in temps over one day/night . Last frost in mid-May. Planting out sans protection (WOW, plastic, cloche, etc.) shouldn't happen any sooner, and most people wait until June. But this means that the plants have as few as 4 weeks to grow, flower, and set fruit before the convection oven of July and August is turned on (temps in July and August rocket up past 90, and there's that ever-present desiccating wind).
So you adapt by either planting as big a plant as you can get in early June, or by planting smaller plants earlier (say mid-April) and working a bit more to protect them from the cold nights. Black plastic to warm up the soil, but that has to be removed before July and a good layer of mulch added to keep the beds from drying out. Regularly watering any bit of dirt out here will be a siren song to weeds, some of which have giant taproots and the rest of which are prickly and spiky and just painful, so weed control is huge. Soils here are always lacking OM and are generally pretty alkaline, so add compost every year and either amend with sulfur or bring in better soil and grow in raised beds.
Find and make friends with experienced gardeners in your local area. If you have one, your cooperative extension is a valuable resource.
Mine, the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, has literally hundreds of searchable publications and staffs master gardeners to answer the phones. They also offer free lectures and classes on everything from pruning to composting to growing veggies. You can walk in with a picture or sample of a sick or diseased plant and they'll help to diagnose the problem.
Don't be afraid to experiment and take calculated risks. Diversify.
Growing from seed lets me try a couple new varieties of tomato each year. I grow both cherry and slicers, which lets me harvest all season long. I plant half my tomatoes early, and the rest at the normal time, which is insurance against early disaster.
Alright. We see that different climates have different set of tricks. For example, in our PNW we have different set of tricks than in Southwest Texas and South Florida. While we try to beat the cool weather, you are fighting the heat. While we try to provide more air flow by pruning, you might need that foliage to shade the fruits and the sol underneath. We pray for more sunshine and you try shade your plants.
The morale of the story is : KNOW YOUR CLIMATE !
Sey
I've heard that, but in the seven years I've been raising tomatoes, I've never once gotten them to last past August. I'm in the SF Valley and the combo of heat and pests just destroys them. Ordinarily, I get tomatoes between late May to early August. It's wonderful, but it's brief.
I always water the foliage daily when I take cuttings. That is the only way they can absorb water from what I've been taught.
Rather than watering daily try just placing newly stuck, watered cuttings in dark for 48 hours, then moving to lower light (under artificial light) until they are growing well. You'll find that propagation success rate will come close to 100% and you'll have healthier transplants. Since roots take a while to form there is no need to rewater for at least 10 days after the initial soaking.