16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
You must also be talking to someone else, because no one on this thread said it was sick with a virus or bacteria, and that you should pull it. If it's been alive for 1.5 years as you say, leaves don't live forever and some yellowing, even dying can be expected. I say it's not sick because yes, you pulled a few yellowing leaves, but the plant I see in the picture has leaves that look good, and if it's been alive for a year and a half you must be doing something right. I'm just wondering how come it didn't grow all last year if it's getting full sun. Are you using potting mix or potting soil? I asked about pot size, because it's kind of hard to tell by the picture. I'm assuming that it looks about 5 gallons which should be big enough. All I can think of is that you might have used potting soil and have some perched water in the pot which might be stunting the growth. I use a skewer to tell if my containers need water. I insert the skewer about 12" down and remove it to see if the bottom of the pot is wet or dry. You also might considering posting this on the "container" forum and see what answers you get. Other than that all I can suggest is waiting and see if the fruit develops. What kind of tomato plant is it? Where is Adelaide? Must be in Southern Hemisphere somewhere.
It depends what you want out of this tomato plant. If you are expecting a good crop then that isn't going to happen after all this time. If you are doing it for fun then it doesn't look too bad to me. I always cover the pot with comfrey (not sure if you can get that in Australia. It grows wild in England and breaks down giving nutrients to the tomato and keeps it from drying out. Redo again in a month.
If you desperately want to grow this variety again then wait until the tomato is ripe and collect some of the seed from it and try again next year.
I've had exactly the same problem and assumed it to be late blight. We have had an appallingly wet summer (haven't watered the Toms all summer). This was followed by a rise in temperature and minimal rain. This is when it appeared. I have removed one plant completely and all infected leaves (not to compost heap). I assumed I would loose all my tomatoes but nothing has got worse in 2 weeks so figures crossed.
Well, it's supposed to rain for the next 3 days (no watch yet but TWC says potentially severe T-storms coming this way today). So I'll see if the leaf roll on the Krims gets better with more water.
Naturegirl - I'd love to see pix of your foliage to compare. My plants did bear a few fruit last year, but never got bushy - don't know if it was where they were (though soil tested OK), too much water right after planting (and bathtub effect in the trenches), not enough water in July?? But they drowned in Aug. Suckers got away from me on all the tomatoes this year - at least the first 75 or so that I planted - they just grew so quickly and I was busy planting squash, cukes, etc. up near the house. I've just been pruning lower leaves (esp. on BW) and tried "weaving" the plants against the fence since I'm not ruthless enough to prune a sucker that has flowers on it LOL.
The fruit really are striped and not spotted as you might expect - here's an actual photo (small) from Fedco:
Here is a link that might be useful: Fedco Speckled Roman
Must add a few shots of our tomatoes!
Left to right: Black Cherry, Snow White, Sungold, and Galina's
German Giant. Just over 1 lb., there are bigger ones on the plant:)
Dagma's Perfection
Orange Russian 117. Very happy with these!
Overall, a great season for tomatoes....even with getting the plants out at least 7-10 days into June!!
I've been watering every day unless the soil looks obviously wet. Fertilizing never happens (since I don't know what to use), and the weather's been cold for tomatoes at night - the low this week is 34 degrees.
The plants are inside now, and the German Queen is pretty much completely dead - the tomato's the greenest part, all the leaves are wilted and/or yellow, and she's bent in half where I'd fixed a break earlier in the year. Mr. Stripey still stands a chance, though. I'm planning on using a grow light over the winter to see if I can keep her going until spring.
Honestly I wouldn't make the effort to try to keep it growing. Your choice of course but not only is your zone an issue for winter-growing but relatively complex conditions for indoor growing are also needed.
Add to that it is a heavily stressed plant already and has been nutrient deprived for some time apparently so is both root bound and anemic in appearance, the odds of any cuttings from it being healthy are slim to none.
Better to spend the winter months learning more about proper container growing methods rather than spending time and money on trying to salvage this one.
Dave
Good news; I have no fungus or any other problems. As per some other post I'm deficient in organic material. I'll be adding some leaves, some chipped tomato plants along with some 10-10-10 fertilizer. Come spring time I'll add some more 10-10-10, some peat moss and some organic compost and should be good to go.
CArolyn 137 ,are you serious you don't know what Pox and Flex are ? And yet to laugh about it. Well you could take a break from patting your self on the back for all the tomatoes you grew,introduced,named and gave birth to,sent seeds of ,new the parents of etc. to Google search,
*****
I know Flex as Gold Fleck, not flex.
Yes, I know Fruit Pox as well, but just couldn't connect the two to your MDiv title and since no photos were shown to illustrate that. And just b'c, I've never seen Gold Fleck nor Fruit Pox on any of the MDiv plants that I've grown.
TO me it's interesting that neither of those conditions has adequately been described as to a proven origin,but a good Gold Fleck variety is Depp's Pink Firefly, and it's remained stable for that variety, but Gold Fleck can come and go and not be heritable
So yes, at first I did LOL it, b'c Flex to me is Gold Fleck, I have several links in my faves about it.
And yes, I suppose I sometime do pat myself on the back but mainly living to the age I am and still being active on a couple of message sites trying to help people with questions. And I mean help and trying to always do it nicely.
And yes, when someone posts about a variety and it's one that I originally did introduce I often do say so, but not all the time, b'c then I can give the history of where I got it from b/c that seems to interest quite a few folks, and besides, I like to keep track of what some folks think of what I call my tomato kids.
Back in the years 2003, 04 and 05, things got nasty here at GW, anyone who was here during those years knows that, and it's one of the reasons that someone who was here at the time set up a new message site in Jan of 06 and a good number of folks switched at that time. A few come back here from time to time, myself included, but if things get nasty here again, I'm gone in a NY minute, as I have recently with a couple of other message sites. I want no part of tomato politics, no intertribal warfare between message sites, and prefer a site or two where courtesy in posting is extended to everyone.
Carolyn
Been doing this for 40+ years, and I've never run across "Pox" and "Flex" before. Learn something new every so often!
Lots of 100+ temps here in Indiana this summer, but my toms. never had anything unusual happen. Grown on 4' black plastic and watered weekly, though. Virtually no cracking until the rains came back in August.
-WC2K8
They need direct sunlight. The "hardening off" business is talked about on the forums because most people grow tomatoes in the spring, not the fall. Only those of us in late-frost areas have that luxury, and we can be often confused by "normal" recommendations. "Hardening off" for a fall garden in Florida means providing some shade in the most brutal part of the mid-late-summer day. You should have had those sprouts growing in lots of sun about six weeks ago for a fall garden. Get them into the sun pronto. The more the better at this point as sun intensity and day length are rapidly declining. Be prepared to provide some frost-cover if you want a harvest.
Good job...looks good. Mine are just about gone but I gave away at least three or four bushels this yr of of big red, pink, black, yellow and orange tomatoes and bi-colors. I had about 18 varieties and 75 plants.About all I have now are a few on some suckers started 7-1 and Cherokee Purple in a different spot along with two cherry plants. I took tomatoes to the ladies of two diff libraries, my Dads church, some girls at the Dentist I use etc. Loved every minute of it.
If it were me I'd call it a season, harvest what you can and then dispose of the plant since you haven't indicated what disease you think it might be that's affecting the stems and I suppose leaves as well.
My guess would be one of the two common fungal doseases, either Early Blight ( A' solani), which can occur early OR late in the season, or Septoria Leaf Spot, and not Late Blight ( P. infestans), which can also occur early or late in the season, b'c if it were the latter no new stems would probably be appearing.
Carolyn