16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

I read a tip on another website......grate Irish Spring soap through the beds. I am going to try it, its worth a try!

There is a post on this site about someone who bought a Costco sized Irish Spring Soap package to sprinkle through his garden. In short, it didn't work and it took him years to use up all the soap. I would continue searching that idea to see if it actually worked for anyone.

I would have to scrap the three single lights I have to buy double lights. Not sure it is worth it, but I might consider it for next year. As the plants grow they do sometimes touch the lights, esp. when they are growing fast. I haven't had any burn yet, but I like to keep them just a tiny bit above the plant. I plant deep during the first transplant and the leggyness is gone unless planting is delayed from the weather and then they can get a little leggy again. I then plant them deep at planting time. I will have to consider if it is worth replacing these lights that are only 1-2 yrs old right now.

Ooops, I was mistaken. I have 3 double lights over them, so 6 bulbs in all, 40 watts each. They are the larger cool bulbs, can't remember if they are T8, maybe? I will have to look another time if it is important, its bedtime. 5 am comes early. :)

I am in Memphis, TN, very hot, and it is just the usual later in the season when the leaves get the yellowing and black ends to them usually starting toward the bottom of plant (probably misused "wilt"). I assume I should remove these bad leaves?

If it's just the yellowing leaves with black ENDS that appear at the bottom of the plants and also later in the season, I'd suggest that those were just old leaves since they are the oldest ones so die first.

Black ends alone do not suggest a foliage disease, nor do they suggest wilting, as you also noted.

Carolyn

All the purpling is normal with young seedling and all the curling leaves are normal too for the most part. Google 'tomato leaf roll'.

For future reference, it would be almost 99% impossible for a young plant growing in a cup in potting mix and that has likely spent 90% of it's life indoors to get Curly Top Virus, or any other disease for that matter so relax, ok? :)

Dave

I agree. Let it grow.

It didn't look like scale to me. It looks more like edema caused by overwatering. Google images of scale. It looks more like little raised shells. It would be very unusual for a tomato seedling to become that badly infected with scale. I would destroy the plant if it had scale that bad.

IME, that is not scale... scale will be individual waxy encapsulations that actually house the insects.
This looks like edema to me too.

It does look like herbicide damage but cold over nite temps and not enuff water could be a problem too. The bottom leaves (they look fine) make me think it may be in need of water.

Nutrients (& water) in the soil would reach the lower leaves first. Stick a finger into the soil a foot or more away from the plant stem to check for moisture.

Cover the plants when overnite temps are below 50.

How long have these plants been in the ground?

What kind of watering do you do? From the top? Soaker hoses? Water cans?

I use buckets with a hole drilled in them for deep watering.

It is not lack of water. It looks like herbicide damage to me too. And my experience says that even though it may grow out of it at some point, they never truly grow and produce correctly after this. Sometimes you will see creamy white streaks on the effected leaves.
The stretching of the internodes of the plants is another classic symptom that is associated with a lot of herbicides.
Again, based on my own experience, I would discard them.

You would have to gradually adjust them to it. Temp would be ok if nights aren't too cold but the UV and sun exposure will be a big change for them. Once hardened off to go to the GH then they are usually ready for transplanting to the garden without additional hardening except for wind protection.

Dave

Thanks for the advice. Ill probably just wait a few more weeks and use the GH for a nice place to harden off. I have used this GH for storage for a few mini palms and other assortments. Its just enough to keep the roots from dying. This is my first attempt at growing my own maters. Much appreciated.

Would you be interested in using Wall-O-Waters? I put mine out the other day. I buried them deep in hopes that they don't grow out of the top before the weather stabilizes. If they do, I'll have to cover them on cold days and nights.

Another option would be to take cuttings from your current plants and root them to keep them going. I recommend rooting them in your growing medium that is kept fairly moist until the cuttings have established roots, usually 3 - 5 days. They will wilt at first, but when they perk up again, they have made roots.

I've done this to keep some going that were getting too big indoors when we had weather that turned cold for longer than usual in the spring, and I have propagated extra plants by taking cuttings. (Faster than restarting from seed.)

Betsy

Thank you for all the suggestions and answers. My grow light is a shop light fixture.

If you have more than a few plants, a single shop light may not be enough. Most of us have two fixtures haning side by side and many have three fixtures. If I were starting over and building my plant starting stand over, I would make it a little wider so that I could hang three sets of lights above each shelf. That would not have increased the plant or tray capacity, just the light capacity.

Betsy