16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
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
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.
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.
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
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
Don't look bad, but they are getting leggy.. Put a fan directly on them, harden them so they can tolerate a fan full blast... Needs brighter light, as close as possible to the plants... What are you feeding them? What kind of hydro are you doing? All an all, don't looks to bad, but I would get a fan on them and a brighter light, nearly touching the plants without harming them..
Joe
Currently using a vegetative growth solution from a hydro store. The current light is pretty cheap incandescent. I'm planning to put cfl lighting above the plants. This is a nighttime picture and in the day the plants get a strong amount of light although they do lean and this requires me to rotate the plants frequently.
Some put a small heater on a thermostat in them or you can provide some heat in those when needed just by putting a couple of clip on 60 wt. incandescent lights on inside.
The real problem with them is in the daytime when heat gets trapped in them if they aren't closely monitored and well ventilated. When the sun is out it can quickly get up to 120 degrees in one of them and cook everything.
But also keep in mind that it is a big environmental change for the plants so they will need to be hardened off first. They won't tolerate going 'cold turkey' right from the house into one of those units.
Be sure to include a thermometer inside it.
Dave
Maybe just a 20% mix of the compost, which is the percentage I used. My compost that I sterilized personally would greatly reduce the chances of damping off as opposed to 100% compost.Do you think I should save some of this compost for seed starting next year or would it be usable and beneficial after setting for a year? Sorry, new at composting too !
If I had my choice I always move plants out on cloudy or rainy days. The transition is much easier to handle; no need for shade cloth or constant monitoring of plant condition.
Granted that those days are involved in the hardening-off process but the less abrupt of a change you can make for this process the better your plants will respond.
Well, the Espoma does seem more like the Fafard potting soil (you can see the humus, not as peaty as the Jiffy or even the Burpee). Might be a little too dense for starting seed - we'll see next year, could be OK if not packed and seeds just lightly covered/misted. I was worried it might be too dense and water-retentive, but the kale I potted up on Friday seems to be doing OK, I'll pot up more (plus tomatoes, maybe peppers) tomorrow and see how long it goes without watering.
The tomatoes in Jiffy mix that I soaked well on Wed aren't wilting, but the trays are much lighter now and the surface is dry - I'll have to see how the roots are when I pot up. The kale was pretty densely planted, so each seedling didn't have a very extensive root system, but I managed to tease them apart and haven't seen any wilting since Friday so I think they're going to make it through the surgery ;-)
A week ago I transplanted mine, which were 3 weeks old and 3-5 inches tall in 1 by 2.5 by 2.5 inch pots, to pots that are 4 inches square and 5 inches deep holding a quart of soil. I placed the soil block from the original pot directly into the bottom of the deeper pot and gently filled in around them. In some cases the first set of true leaves were buried and only a tuft of the second set were visible above the soil. They have all grown considerably in the week since and look great. Go as deep as you can. I'm hoping mine will be able to go out for hardening off in 2-3 weeks.
I'm doing mine tomorrow, but since I have limited space indoors right now I'm just going from 72-cell flat to 50-cell flats and 1 plant per cell instead of 2 (or some cases, like cherries, as many as 6!). Had started seed March 16 but then had a few varieties I started later, and I've still got some emerging (they've been off the heat for weeks, I really thought I wasn't going to get any more).
I'll go to 3-4" pots later in the month, or early May, start hardening off mid-May.
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