16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

Deer LOVE tomatoes. I have an electric fence around mine. They would come into my kitchen garden which is between two porches and only about 10 x 15 and eat the plants to the ground. Ah it was so nice when this place was in the country, but we have been suburbanized.

Easiest way to keep deer at bay is by using a "fear based" repellent like Shake-Away Coyote Urine Granules.
Simply sprinkle around the area you wish to protect. Can be purchased at many Ace Hardware stores or this Natural Deer Repellent can be purchased at Critter-Repellent.com. Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Natural Deer Repellent

Knowing where you are located or at least your gardening zone would be a big help in answering your question. The possible causes are many and could simply be planting too late.

Over-fertilizing is another option given the info provided as it can lead to large plants with small/low fruit production.

Are your plants heavily mulched as they should be? Do you water deeply or are you one of the 20 mins. a day type water folks? Raised mounds dry out quickly and so need lots of deep watering and heavy mulching.

Have you ever had your soil tested to see what it lacks? Miracle Grow lacks many nutrients.

Need much more information.

Dave

Sorry for not providing my zone since it makes a big difference. The soil has been analyzed by the university and there were no recommended enhancements for growing tomatoes. The plants are mulched because of the problem with silt and absorption. Also I confess to being one of those 20 minute persons, but I am only tending 12 plants. The garden area is quite flat, so since I have never delt with a silt garden I probably miss judge the water volume requirements. I plan to bring in as much compost as possible to work in this fall, but I will try to find a way to get more water to these plants in the meantime.

Some manures and other organic matter are contaminated with clopyralid, picloram or aminopyralid.

Here's info about clopyralid contamination which persists for a year
http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/soilmgmt/clopyralid.htm

Here is a link that might be useful: contaminated manures, etc (WSU)

Jean, I did know that about the contamination, but didn't read all the links at the site you just put up, just a few, but saw no association with BER on tomatoes.

Or did I miss somthing, which is quite possible?

Carolyn

I've had several big double bloom fruit this yr. I have a 27 oz almost mahogany colored Cherokee P on the table now. They taste the same as the round ones.

I like megablooms because they sometimes lead to bigger tomatoes, but they do look pretty mangled... No megablooms this year though.

I'll offer a bit of real life experience......

Lawn company used weed killer with 2-4D as an ingredient.
8 weeks later, after many mowings with removal of all clippings, I saved some grass clippings and allowed them to dry on driveway.
After drying, I used clippings as mulch on some potted plants
Shortly after, the plants began curling up as if they had Cucumber Mosaic Virus.
The lack of cucumber beetles and a little research later suggested possible herbicide damage.
I removed the grass clippings and flushed a ton of water through the potted plants.
Each recovered and produced a good supply of fruit.

Tomato plants are known to detect minute traces of 2-4D. They are able to detect levels that lab equipment can't.

Hope this helps,

Lee

Thanks, derfy and lee for your responses. I had a feeling I had better not put the clippings down.
Regards,
Bob

Some of my earlier tomatoes did the same thing this year... something that I have never seen before. Some of my Brandywines, Big Rainbows, Persimmon and Purple Cherokee had this problem. Parts of the flesh towards the middle of the fruit were too soft to eat. Almost mushy and partially disintegrated And they were just barely ripe. Later in the season, it disappeared. I live in Charlotte, NC.

I'm not planting in the same place, that's what's so strange. Mostly in large containers and the growing medium is changed every year completely.imthinking that it might be just the frost few tomatoes.

Thanks for the reply. I think the 'ol timer probably knew what he was doing, sadly I don't ;) I'll stick to vinegar and water for my tomatoes. As far as canning the cherries, I'm leaning toward throwing them all in the blender and making a sauce out of them. I just have so many I was trying to think of some way of preserving them whole without having them fall apart.

Last year, I made spicy dilly green tomato pickles for the first time from end-of-the-season cherries. A good friend of mine in his 50s said they are the best pickles he's ever tasted. It took me a while to acquire the taste, but now I'm considering picking the cherry tomatoes early in their unripe stage if the other varieties are productive enough for my other needs.

The NCHFP site has a recipe that uses sweet peppers, but I understand that you can safely trade sweet peppers for hot peppers as much as you want as long as the total amount of pepper doesn't exceed the amount of pepper called for in the recipe.

So you know I'm 73 and can't walk either and have to use a walker b;c of a fall in 2004 when I severed all fout quads in my right leg, and someone else, actually four people help me.

Craig L in Raleigh raises my plants and sends them up here and Freda who helps with cleaning and does all my gardening for me tends the tomato plants and all else. And then Shoe and Lee in NC do seed production for me as well as Neil in IL but with the drought in IL it looks like he will lose all 600 of the tomato plants he has out, of which only maybe 7 varieties are mine.

Remember, older is bolder and also wiser and if you are older than I am it also means you are bolder and wiser than I am. LOL

And yes, I know CO well for I lived in Denver for many years and taught med students at the Med School, corner of 8th and Colorado Blvd and my home was on Locust, one block down from the 17th ave Pkway and one block East of Monaco. .

Yup, I grew tomatoes there in the 70's to early 80's, yes I did. LOL

Carolyn

Yea Carolyn I know. Got you beat by 10 years. Born and raised around Greeley. Only knowledge of Denver is VA hospital for 30 days with staph from heart surgery 26 years ago--not many of us around. On my second ICD and trust it. We are both examples of not ever giving up. I was keeping track of you a bit back when you were having some problems. God, wouldn't it be nice to be able to just walk around the yard again? But I'm glad for what I have and I bet you are too.
Sorry for all this to you health people. But I want to tell all of you to take care of your selfs and live every day to the fullest.
KennyP