16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Thanks, Sandy...I will keep an eye on that...

Thanks, Joe...(I actually came across that earlier...my neighbor has tried capsaicin repellant and had only very limited success with it on the initial placement of it - later they came back.)

My sister and also my friend have had success in trapping skunks in live traps. You have to throw a blanket over the trap to carry it off and then they don't spray you, you put the blanket over you when you're walking up to the trap and then shrug it off of you and onto the trap. Then you open the door without letting it see you and cover yourself up with the blanket again so,it doesn't see you while you're releasing it far away from your house. It works! Good luck...

Ohio, I know! Haha, my boyfriend is constantly calling me the tinkerer because I can't leave the plants alone, lol. With yard plants, I felt like I could only amend as much as I could -- but now being limited to containers and so much on the web (especially here), I'm out of control, peering into each plant and noticing if even one thing is not like it was an hour ago. Luckily I am almost out of room and only a few seedlings left to mess with and then I'm done -- for this season, lol.

With the only-HP seedlings, whatever happened did happen in about 24 hours, so I guess it wasn't the soil. I thought maybe it was too waterlogged or _______, and hence turning yellow. And perhaps coincidental but the growth since putting it in 5:1:1 has been green. Bizarre -- but fascinating.

Re: Bougainvillea -- I would have never considered GM for it. (See? Now I'm thinking, "Hmm....maybe I can try that!" LOL!!) I would have thought, Ohio, in full sun in the heat of summer, it would be a mess in GM. I had one that was 20 feet plus at my old house, and it was a mini project to sit there and water that thing in the ground. That was my logic, anyway, in why I attempted pure Pro-mix HP first...

Thanks for the reply, Ohio! :-)
Speaking of whiteflies, now I must go find if that's what I saw this morning. I am all grossed out right now and will post on the pests forum. Blech.

Gardenweb88 -- sorry for hijacking your thread for a moment!

Grace

I grew two Willamette tomato plants last year. One in a five gallon planter with black gold potting soil and 25% perlite mixed in, and one in a five gallon bucket with 95% perlite and 5% grow rocks untop of the perlite. Both were grown out side. Toward the end I added some fertilizer to the blackgold plant. The perlite plant was grown with General Hydroponics 3 part flora nutrients from beginning until harvest. Both plants produced great tasting tomatoes.

Bottom up watering? That's fine if the mix is wicking water properly. With a consistent good wicking soil mix it should wick right to the top of the mix and appear moist. I'm not sure whether it's too much or too little water, but I would suggest doing a through soil probe to determine just how moist it is. I agree that they don't usually yellow and die from too little water, they usually just get a little floppy, and respond quickly to watering. I water from top down with a good draining mix, so when I see water running out the bottom I know it's watered. The mix drains well enough so I rarely, if ever, have to worry about overwatering.

Here is a side view. I am using my phone to take these so it's hard to get a good one especially since it was overcast. They're embarrassingly pathetic looking in person. I don't think I potted them deep enough and I'm sure the pots are already too small. Ugh.

Could too much fertilizer do this? Maybe it's the miracle gro??? Hopefully they can rebound from this. If I restart them now I think they might be big enough by the time it's okay to put them out.

This post was edited by kgolomb on Sun, Apr 21, 13 at 15:31

s it ok to rinse out the sprayer and hose, and just alternate the solution as needed?

Yeah, with great care since many of them contain emulsifiers and oils so a quick rinse and dump with cold water doesn't cut it,

But just ask the gardener who didn't get it rinsed well and ended up spraying herbicide along with the fertilizer if having only one sprayer is enough.

At the very least separate marked sprayers for fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides to avoid cross contamination can prevent a lot of grief.

Switch to hose-end sprayers. They are small, easy to store, and cheap.

Dave

go to three sprayers, one for weed killer, one for fungicide and one for pest killers. You can use either of the ones that aren't weed killer for fertilizer. But don't use the weed killer one for anything but weeds!

It's possible it was the hard freeze, but if it was covered, usually only the outside portion of the plant touching the cover would be dead, and the damaged part quickly turns dark and not a gradual yellow wilting like yours. It kind of looks like wilt, but the plant is so young, it might not be. I would probably remove the hopeless foliage (or not, you could wait a while) and hope for the best.....

This post was edited by edweather on Sat, Apr 20, 13 at 16:38

it looks like sun and windburn. If it just went from the greenhouse to a sunny day, and then some wind, and then some cold, wow for all that it looks pretty good. I would just leave it alone. It will recover.
if it looked good when you got it, then it's not wilt. it wouldn't show that fast.

You accidentally wintersowed them. I do all mine that way and they look like that right now since they came up about a week ago when the weather warmed to the 60s.

By late May, however, when they've been in the ground for a bit, they'll take off and catch up. And yes, they're probably a little sturdier than the ones started inside. My brother starts his in a hot house and they're usually far bigger than mine when it's time to plant out. But last year we got our first ripe tomatoes in the same week.

I just planted some seeds outdoors in egg cartons. Will leave them out there and water when necessary so they can freeze over night and warm up during the day. We are might have some rain or snow tomorrow according to one forecast but another one says it will be clear. I think that I will cover them with saran wrap plastic over night in case we have some rain or snow.

IMO that looks more like sunburn than frostbite. Did you harden them off? Are you sure there was frost?

There wasn't frost but it got down to about 32 or 33 degrees and my garden shed is missing half its roof. Storm last summer blew off half the roof and it hasn't been repaired yet. Your right, it does look like sunburn now that you mention it.
Maybe could be sunburn since the roof isn't all there but the problem seemed to start after that cold night. They almost drowned from the last rain. I think all that water probably took away all the nutrients out of the pot. My poor tomatoes are having a rough start this year.

Thanks to both of you!

Dave, you really hit the nail on the head. I planted 8 toms (all indeterminates) in about a 4x8 raised bed space last year and thought that was enough room to breathe. I did eventually have trouble with disease and overcrowding.

I'd much rather have fewer healthier plants and more fruit than the mess I was wading through last September. Plus our third baby is due mid-July and the less plants I have, the less I have to tend.

And good advice on the Celebrity, I had only read about how they were good producers, until just now when I read they were more of a determinate type. I assume they will do better in containers as they're more of a bush than a vine?

Thanks again, my plan seems to make a little more sense now.

My raised beds are 4 ft wide. I put 2 sweet 100 side by side at one end and 2 sungold at another end.

Yeah they grow like crazy. I use 7 ft tall CRW cages and let them drape over the sides and ends of the bed.

If you grow them like this, you will need a small ladder in the fall.

Rick

I use metal electrical conduit ($3.29/10ft at the box stores) cut in half to make 2 5 ft stakes and drive 12 inches in the ground. I used to use zip ties to attach the cages, but now use short lengths of solid electrical wire. The copper wire is easy to bend and can be reused for years. Any construction site should have scraps of electrical wire.
Jim

My local orange store sells 18 inch pine wood stakes. 12 for $4. I routinely look in the cull bins for discounted/free wood that I can use in my garden to make A-frames or support stakes.

They won't last forever, but they're cheap enough.

Here is the relevant info translated from the breeder Takii Seed:
Nutrient rich takii hybrid tomatoes
peaches taro gold î momotaro PVP YE004
make easy orange-yellow!

Delivery of standard seed: 18 tablets 1 bag 1 bag 1000 grains

a vivid orange-yellow fruit colour features, perfect for colorful cuisine. Than the lycopene contained in traditional pink species-rich lycopene CIS-that is easily absorbed into the body.

Meek vigor and overall excellent result so easy to make. Average fruit weight 210-220 g disease resistance ï¼ÂTm-2a.F1.F2.V.LS.N

rootstock 2A ï¼ÂTm--MILF stage: early

Takii mating momotaro gold tomatoes

I am not completely sure but this was a sales page and "rootstock" might be referring to availability of grafted seedlings. Grafted plants are common in Asia.

nothing about "determinate" only "meek vigor"
which could be interpreted relevant to rootstock/scion performance (controlled growth of the scion match is key - you want them producing fruit not lots of foliage and vine)

Thanks for your help!

Did you fertilize? It could be a fertilizer imbalance or pH problem. The plant in the background looks great.

Still under the grow lights, and the same nutrients for the other ones. We are going to take it out of the container tonight, and change the dirt. Hopefully that's all it is.

Thanks for the replies.

Commercial plants are sometimes over-fertilized to give them that dark green appearance. The uninformed public thinks they look healthier which isn't necessarily true.

Other issues - light exposure for example - can lead to color differences as commercial growers grow plants very differently than the average home grower. Different varieties can also differ in leaf color.

Is it a problem? No, not if your home grown plants are sufficiently fed and appear healthy.

Dave

Thanks for the reply. I would be afraid to fertilize more because I put bone meal and kelp meal in the whole with all the plants. And the soil is very well composited. The purchased ones may have been in the sun more.

Since this topic rose to the top again, I want to add a photo of my Texas Tomato Cages in 25-gallon containers. They worked great. This photo was taken July 1, 2012, about 6 weeks after the tomatoes were planted out. By the end of the summer, the plants were huge, but the cages held up well. We had a storm with straight line winds over 50 mph, and a couple tipped but did not fall over. The plants were not damaged.

Here's mine. Made out of PVC pipe and fittings. Cost is
about the same as TTC. I've been using this setup for
about 20 years now with the same PVC.

Follow the link to see how it's done.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tom's Tomato cage page