16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Pic of suspected environmental damage

Hi, can't exactly tell but .. on your last picture, that may be flea beetles. Little black flea-like ones that jump from leaf to leaf and suck juices out. They sometimes have alot of little circles together. From reading, I believe they won't kill off your plant. Seems to happen in the beginning of the year. Once plant growing strong, these are going away in mine.

Mine began to snap over in the wind. I now have them tied up to stakes. Tomatoes are pretty resilient though, you can probably leave it if you wanted and the tomato will mend the internal part of the stem, most likely.

"there's no way to prop them up at this height."

Sure there is. If the plants are 4' high, buy some 5-6+' stakes and insert them into the soil around the plant. Then either tie the stems to the stakes or weave twine around the stakes to make a taller "cage".

Steve34, where are you at in the US? Here in VA, I've been joking I'll never have to water again, because of all the storms here. The peaches at the farmer's market were "watery" tasting this year--they were saying it was from all the rain. I've heard the same could be said for tomatoes when it's been very wet as well.

I'm apprehensive for my seven varieties of tomatoes I'm growing. But, I'll just see at harvest time (lots of green right now, but no red yet). But heck, can't be worse then the grocery store.

*Grow my Romas, grow!*

Oops! You just said. I really think it could be the excess rains. :/ Not sure there's anything we can do about mother nature this year.

Agree with all the above.

I charged up soil this year with vermiculite and compost. Then i did monthly feeding with garden lime and Fox Farm Happy Frog Tomato food. Now it is happening again. I have a water meter to make sure I don't over water. It has been hot and humid.

Contributing factors to your problems are:

1) the container you are using both size and shape and that it is upside down
2) the vermiculite and compost in the container
3) monthly feeding with lime really skews the soil pH so nutrients can't be used by the plants even if there were any in there
4) only feeding the Happy Frog monthly rather than at least weekly
5)trying to use organics in a container when there is no soil bacteria, no active micro-herd to decompose the organics and make the nutrients in them available to the plants
6) depending on a moisture meter for watering info - notoriously unreliable and especially so for containers so most likely way over-watering.

Sorry for the failure and the expense but a bit of research on the Container gardening forum should get you off to a much better start next year.

Dave

Also, if you are using self watering containers, Raybo has done an excellent job documenting how to get great results with EarthTainers.

Here is a link that might be useful: EarthTainer Construction Guide

Aren't those tomato horn worms just the cutest little beasties????? Once you find one, your eyes will become accustomed to finding them. BT dust is the best -- hand-picking/squishing is fine but it is hard to find them all. I have heard that taking a black light out at night is also a great way to find them all - they turn day-glow green. Still - BT is perfectly safe, so use it.

The way I find them is if I happen to see their black "droppings" which have usually fallen to a leaf below. If I look to the leaves or stems above the droppings and I usually will find one. Pulled off 6 so far this year using that technique.

this happened to me years ago, i had huge green plants but no tomatoes,i haven't had it again. i really think excess nitogen is usually not the case. i use many high nitrogen elements to prepare the soil milorganite,cotton seed meal,chicken manure,ect plus compost. would i started doing was planting further apart sun and air circulation are very important, i also mulch with straw to keep the soil moist.. how close are they planted?

Thanks for all the support. No more water!!!! We have had more than enough VERY regular rain - fortunately the tomato garden is on a slant so it runs off. Also - I will not be adding anything at all to this soil--- beet greens are an indication of healthy soil and those are a rich green.

Today, I am noticing flowers starting to form and a few small tomatoes so maybe the plants were just over-stimulated by all the rain and are now going to perform. I have 12 plants (each a different variety) and were planted 2' apart in rows 8' apart. I have reinforced concrete wire cages around each. With all the foliage, they are growing very close together but the path between the rows is wide enough to walk through.

I think I will have a tomato crop after all unless we have a very early frost. Thanks again all.

Any plant, regardless of age, that is getting a major shift in environment needs to be hardened off first.

Dave

I had a cover crop of hairy vetch growing on the barbed wire fence near a tomato. I left it because it was pretty and blooming. I pulled it when it went to seed and the tomatoes sheltered by it got sun scald. You have to protect them from shifts in environment as stated above.

From what I understand that could be normal . When the plants is developing fruit, it's sucking the nutrients out of the bottom leaves first. The white spores I have no idea.

You don't show the rest of plant !!! How is the rest of plant doing ??!

But as far as those leaves are concerned, they are partially dead and drying up slowly from the edges towards inside.

3-4 weeks for ripening is totally unrealistic - think 6-7 weeks instead. Patience.

Am I watering too much? Is there some fungus, disease? Not enough sun? Perhaps the soil quality isn't nutritional enough? All I know is the tomatoes aren't ripening.

The ripening isn't related to the rest of this stuff and we can't really help you without a photo of the plants and affected leaves or at least many more details. Otherwise it is just guess work and likely wrong.

It could be disease issues or a watering issue - either over or under - or lack of nutrient issues but you'd need to tells us what the bed filler is, what fertilizers and other amendments you have added, how often you have fed them, how much, how long and how often you water them, etc. etc. etc.

Dave

I waited more than 2 months from flower to ripe tomato. AND that was EARLY girl. haha. But the first month was cold and rainy. The second month was not that great either.

So, I thing it has to do with HEAT. Here at the PNW, supposedly is zone 7B, but in terms of heat it is ZONE !. Down south in zone 7B, heat zone is 10. If here it takes 8 weeks, it will take 6 weeks down there. I know, I have gardened for years in GA, 7B.