16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
well, if the seedlngs are decent and are of the rare to find varieties, I wouldn't mind paying $3.50 -$4.00. But for the ordinary varieties those prices are bit expensive. I paid about 3 bucks each for Brandywine and Black krim at Lowes. So, I think that small home growers should concentrate on specialty varieties and differentiated themselves from the big box stores.
Yes, generally they will assign same plot year after year, but one has to remove-disassemble everything and village will rototill everything after the season and before the season starts. So there is benefit in adding to the soil just not the same I would have done otherwise.
Fertilizer is a general term . Essential general all-purpose fertilizers contain N, P, K( Ninitrogen, phosphorous, potassium ). Of those three, Phosphorous stick to the soil and stick around for a long time. Nitrogen, being readily water soluble, has tendency to be leached out. Potassium (K)is somewhere in between.
Therefore, in container gardening and also during and shortly after prolonged rains, it is mostly the nitrogen that becomes deficient as evidenced by yellow foliage. Under such circumstances I feed mostly Nitrogen, maybe some Potassium(K) but not much Phosphorous. If you cannot find those elements separately, use a fertilizer that is rich in nitrogen but poor in phosphorous with some potassium.
Also, I often just give nitrogen to my leafy veggies that you don't want them to flower and fruit. But K is essential for roots . Wood ash is an excellent source of potassium if you can get it.
How do I know it's not overwatered? I mean, I want the soil moist, but if it's well drained soil, it won't be soggy. So what this means is well-watered, but well-drained soil?
First I stress soil-less mix, not potting soil. Crucial difference. Some think they are the same thing but they aren't. Soil-less potting mixes are sterilized, potting soils are not. They contain only peat, perlite or vermiculite and some lime to balance the pH so soil-less mixes drain better too.
What I teach in the Master Gardener course for properly wet potting mix is dump the dry mix into a container, pour in enough warm water to cover it all well, let it soak for a few hours stirring now and then with your hand, when it is all sloppy soaked wet then grab it by handfulls and wring it out in your hand just to the point it starts to stick together in a clump, fill the containers with that wrung out mix and lightly tamp it into place with your fingers. make sense?
If the containers are kept indoors out of the direct sun then you shouldn't have to give it any more water for 3-5 days. After that if you stick your finger in it and if feels dry bottom water only and don't let the pots sit in water once the top of the soil surface shows any signs of moisture absorbtion.
i don't agree with the plastic bag as that can encourage damp off or the windowsill as it can be too much sun and heat but that's your choice.
No recommendations of magic sauce or incantations?
I suppose you can always try the voo-doo magic BER cures of TUMS, aspirin, milk and crushed egg shells or recite the alphabet backwards while turning in clockwise circles. :-)
Dave
Thanks, Dave. That's very useful. I would have used sterilized potting soil, but maybe the soil-less mixture is indeed more moisture-appropriate.
I'll hold off on the sauces, but maybe I'll try that incantation. Nothing to lose. I'm on travel for a week, but I'll start in on this when I return. Takin' notes as fast as I can ...
Each hornworm comes from eggs laid by the Hornworm (or Tomatoworm) moth. The moth tends to be relatively large and brown. How many hornworms you get depends on how long the moths visited your garden before moving on to greener pastures, so to speak.
As I said in a previous post, go out to your garden at various times of the day and try listening for the hornworms eating. It sounds kind of like a medium-low pitched "crunch. . . crunch. . . crunch." If you hear them it can help you track them down.
One tablespoon of Tomato Tone is nowhere near over-fertilization. Actually it might be under-fertilizing. They can take alot more than that especially when the plants are growing at maximum. I think the instructions say that you can apply 3 tablespoons, 4 times per year. And that's a minimum...many people apply more. So,yes, correct the situation and add 3 tablespoons per plant now. Don't feel bad, I have a bias toward underfertilizing my plants too :-)
In my experience, you dont generally need to do much for blossom end rot, except pull off the tomatoes and throw them away. They rarely taste good when ripe, unless the blossom end rot is very minimal and involves only a small fraction of the tomato, which is NOT typical.
It tends to occur more with the very first few tomatoes on a plant, and probably is just caused by the plant not quite being strong enough or healthy enough to support the growing tomato. Yeah, it could be triggered by cold, fertilizer conditions, lack of water, etc, but with time the plant grows and improves and future tomatoes are less likely to have BER.
weird- I posted a reply and it did not show up. I trimmed off the end rotted tomatoes, and I added a little more fertilzer, this time with a fertilizer more geared towards tomatoes and claims to reduce blossom end rot. I probably added two table spoons to each plant close the base and mixed it in to the soil a little. I was limited in what I could do without taking the trashbag cover off the soil. In brighter news I noticed a fruit on the taller plant finally! See attached picture and video link
Here is a link that might be useful: Video: First fruit of taller plant etc
seysonn - not sure what's causing the leaf roll. Temps
have been in the 80's and the soil is nice and moist.
Maybe because that side faces the sun?
fireduck - yes, a lot of planning and it turned out a lot better
than I expected. My soil (before I started working on it) was
also a clay-type called caliche. Mix caliche with water and straw
and let them sit in the sun and you get adobe brick. When
dried out, it's as hard as a rock. Lots of Kellogg's AMEND,
grass clippings and coffee grounds did the trick.
HeyJude2012 - the bottom upright is pounded into the
ground about 12 inches. Very stable. And the cages
are really quite flexible. It all adds up to a nice system.
Mike - the lack of marine layer this year (May grey and
June gloom) is the answer. I'll have plenty of seeds in
case you need them....hope not!
What you have is most likely a hybrid throwback anyway so the taste may never be any good. You mention you have always grown "run-of-the-mill tomatoes all my life" so I presume hybrids. And most all the grape types are hybrids.
So since hybrids don't breed true but revert to something else and you can't have any idea what the parent stock was no telling how it will ever taste. Just leave it on the vine or let a few of them ripen inside on the counter until they turn soft and then you will have an idea of the proper picking color.
Dave
I'm in New Orleans and here we grow Creole tomatoes, some of the best in the world- huge, squat and lobed with a large crown and very juicy, very ugly. Gardens here use types like Celebrity, Better Boy, etc. when planting, or whatever seems to hold up to the intense heat. There is really no required pedigree or cultivar type. It's actually the climate and soil that make the tomatoes better here, believe it or not. Long story short, that's what I meant about run-of-the-mill. I have grown cherry tomatoes with great success, but grape tomatoes can't seem to stand up to our mid-90s Spring weather here. Like I said, this was just some random plant that showed up in my garden, I assume as a result of a bird hanging around, and I was curious. Thanks so much for all the information
interestingly, the chlorine in the water thing may be something...i water the plants right from an outside tap and i live in scotland, where im sure there is chlorine in the water..????
i dont want to dig this out, i still, william wallace style, think i can beat the odds and revive this!!
however, is there literally ZERO chance?
No idea why my last post repeated...sorry bout that.
You know, with tomatoes, there is rarely ZERO chance of survival...they can be tougher than we think! Whether it will ever be productive and healthy is a different story. :)
Wilted leaves are one thing, but its the look of that lower stem segment that makes me think its kaput. If you gently squeeze it near the soil level, does it feel squishy or hollow? If so, give it its last rights and put it to rest. (Sorry!) At any rate, with the looks of it, the best you could hope for would be to leave it alone and see if it limps along and revives. Even if there is a disease to blame (grey mold?) if the whole plant looks like that then any treatment plan is too little and too late. (sorry again!)
It looks very good. Your maters look healthy.
If your mulch was wood chips, probably you did the right thing. However manure compost on the roots might be too strong. I like mulching with straw and pine straw. The purpose of mulching and its benefits benefit are threefold. One: can help prevent weeds growth. Two : can help prevent the surface from drying out quicker: And third : I warm climates it ca help to keep the roots cooler, specially if the plants spacing is wide and you get all day direct sun, which from the picture I can tell it is the case here.
Good luck for the rest of the season.
looking at it more closely, it is almost grape shaped now. Here is a picture... the (blurry) tomatoes in the background look more round.
Doesn't look like Black Cherry to me and I grow it every year.
Cindy