16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
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.
Up in PNW we have some disadvantages , as compared to the south, East, NE, mid west, .. but we have an advantage: We never get any storms. Hurricane is never heard of here. Well, it is no accident . The PACIFIC ocean is pretty gentle and calm.
Sey
Hi ncrealestateguy,
Your reaction is expected.
In Boston we have frequent rains. I believe one can duplicate my experiment in similar climate and soil. The key is to have deep garden bed with lots of organic matters. The plants will find water deep down and nutrients made by worms.
Be sure the soil is moist but not soaked. Take it out of the "greenhouse" for good and start in the house by a window that catches morning sun (continuing supplemental lighting the whole time). I'm thinking your "greenhouse" is some sort of plastic dome, which should have been removed shortly upon gemination. When it holds up to that for several hours indoors, then start it gradually outside, and always begin use morning sun when it is more humid and lower in the sky.
Pictures would help as mentioned but I think the answer will still be the same. Hopefully the plant is healthy and has had sufficient light to develop so far. A fan or breezy place is also helpful if you have one by a window. Good luck :)
PC
if by greenhouse you mean you have a seed starting system with plastic dome as sold in the stores. then the dome must be immediately removed as soon or even before the seeds poke above ground and fresh air from then on. putting the dome over the seedling will make it unable to survive. it will most likely get damping off disease from the high humidity and flop over and die. look closely at the stem at the ground level. if the diameter of the stem is smaller then it has damping off and will die. no way to save it once it gets damping off.
damping off is why people use sterile soil to germinate seeds. they are looking for soil that is free of the damping off disease.
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.