16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
Hi, BER is running rampant. At first I did not know what was wrong with my poor tomatoes. The cherry and grape ones were fine, but the larger ones had a yucky rotten bottom. I did some research and found it was BER. I did not exactly know what to do since they were already planted and it was too late to treat the soil, so I went to the store and got some plant food that had added Calcium and after a week I noticed a few more tomatoes and there were fewer with the yucky stuff on the bottom.
Also I noticed that some of my tomatoes are blotchy red/orange and yellow. They look strange. I am afraid to eat them!
It's hard to know if the plant food helped, or if the problem just got better on its own. It is supposed to be the earlier tomatoes on a plan that get ber the worst.
I think your other problem might be sun scald. I have it myself, and I have read a lot of people complaining about the same problem, due to our intensely hot summer. The yellow tops will never turn red; just cut that part off. The rest is fine to eat.
Agreed this looks like blossom end rot. I have had similar problems with my San Marzano tomatoes which grew like crazy when hot humid weather hit. Same problem hit some of my peppers too. This is supposedly caused by a calcium deficiency ... which is aggravated during periods of very rapid growth.
I've had pretty good short term luck with foliar feeds of 'Rot Stop' ... which is a calcium bearing spray that is readily available online, from Ace Hardware etc. A longer term solution is to add some gypsum to your garden soil ,,, but this isn't going to do much good in the short term.
I have also heard of plain old skim milk being used as a calcium 'watering additive' ... but I've never tried it myself.
Blight or whatever. I had the same thing yellow spots on the leaves and the fruit gets injured. Fungi is the biggest enemy of backyard gardens. I lost have of the peach on my peach trees the peach gets injured and fall. I consulted with the county extension. They recommended spray program to all my trees and all my vegetables. I started the spray every 10 days I use spectracide all purpose fungicide. I saved half of my peach crop and my tomatoes recovered. For three weeks now not even one tomato got injured and all my plants look very healthy. The lady at the extension told me without fungicide spray the commercial producers will go bankrupt. The hot weather and occasional rain is a fertile condition to fungi.
Plant looking OK, like top lateral may replace growing tip, but no flowers yet. The one same age in same sized pot had flowers open today, I gave it to my aunt since the ones she bought at Mother's Day plant sale are dying (EB and maybe just neglect - she never planted the 2 cherries and 1 eggplant I gave her last month, looks like she didn't even water the eggplant!). The last one I took from 4" pot to 3gal pot is a little behind since it's only been in the big pot 2 weeks. Don't know if I can sell that one at market (will transport OK, the big one with flowers I didn't want to risk, aunt's car 1/2 mile up the road should be OK). May keep it as a "control".
Although the white thing on the tomato cage looks like a white fly, they're much smaller. If you have them, they will fly up in a little swarm when you shake the plant, and leaves will show damage. You could spray with spinosad or neem if you think they're hurting your plant. But your plants look healthy, so I would go slow.
I too have insects like Djole described every summer. I think they are some kind of leaf hopper. I've never seen them do any damage, I've never done any thing more than spray them with water.
It was humor :) but also it was meant to illustrate how many different species of whitefly there are - each with own differences in appearance, behavior etc.
Whitefly, leaf hopper or something else, 3 things are certain - its not fungus, and its not alarming and its been dealt with :). Just hose 'em like mentioned and keep a close watch on the plant for reappearances. Good luck ;)
Cheers,
Djole
As for reds, along with Gardener's Delight, i like Suncherry Premium from T&M.
I've planted some Berry F1 this season, had a chance to taste just a single ripe tomato so far and it tastes extremely promising :) I don't want to jump to conclusions at least until the season is over, but i think it might become my new favorite.
Hi DonnaB -
Our two favorites (of the cherrys) are both Black Cherry and Sungold, both of which you said you've grown. They seem to always come thru in terms of taste, disease resistance and prolificness (is that a word?).
The Sweet 100's, 1,000,000's et al while prolific, just don't seem to have the 'tomatoey' (is that a word? redux) taste of Black Cherry and even Sungold.
The only cherry we've never cared for is Yellow Pear which, granted, is cute but tastes like cold cream. YMMV .....
Will and the Furry Ones in the OC
Thanks for that info bigpinks. I'm very interested in any tomatoes that do well in the heat. I want to establish a tomato database and settle on some that I can grow here. I tried the Phoenix tomato last year and was unimpressed but may try it again. Can't really write anything off with only one try!!
Here's some info on the Mexico Tomato plant
Here is a link that might be useful: Mexico Tomato at TomatoFest
Below is a link to Tania's T-base about Mexico. I'm the Carolyn Male referred to and was the first to list it in the SSE YEarbooks, as you can see, and also sent it to certain other seed sites for trialall those many years ago.
I now longer live in Latham, and with 3,000 pages I doubt that Tania has had time to update all new sources for 2012.
Off the Vine, mentioned in the link, is an international newsletter that Craig LeHoullier and I used to publish.
And we used the same to name OTV Brandywine, an excellent variety that's sets fruits much better in the south than do most "brandywines".
Compared with many other large pink beefsteak varieties I've grown, Mexico is just not up there when it comes to taste. Having been grown in the Midwest for many years I didn't expect any heat tolerance, and didn't see any for it produced as well as most of the other varieties I've grown over the years.
Hope that helps.
Carolyn
Here is a link that might be useful: Mexico
I grow pumpkins and heirloom tomatoes. I have found Diatomaceous earth to be an invaluable weapon against stink bugs. I also learned the best way to apply it which can be seen here http://youtu.be/HkrK8LvQPa8 . It is economical and it really really works.
Here is a link that might be useful: mlgardens
Is this just a few fruit or many? If many then it is often a sign of plant stress (usually water related) and it is dropping the fruit to try to survive - some call it fruit abortion although that is usually associated with small immature fruit. But number of fruit on the cluster doesn't usually play a role. The availability of moisture and the ability of the roots to support the plant with fruit does play a role.
If it is just a few - one here and there - then there can be many causes ranging from wind to pests to fruit injury. Do you actually see them fall or just find them on the ground later?
A further consideration is that some hybrids have been bred for "quick-release" for picking purposes so variety may play a role (but not in this case).
Dave
As for reapplications, you will have to check the label for instruction. Osmocotes do tend to last longer than ferts in form of sticks or similar, but nevertheless it can be tricky to know when they are done (one of the reasons i tend to use solubles on weekly basis). Keep in mind tomatoes are heavy feeders, so if the label says 4 months / 120 days, it might be 90-100 days for tomatoes.
You might also want to check the N-P-K ratio of your osmocotes since not all are the same - some are for flowers, some for pines, some for fruit etc. I've got Scotts Substral osmocotes for berries. It's intended for strawberries, raspberries, currants, etc. Due to the N-P-K ratio of 11-11-19 i've used them for my container peppers and they seem to enjoy it. Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Djole
Plants grown in containers will need regular supplemental feedings throughout the season regardless of what is added to the soil at planting time.
Slow release fertilizers will leach out of containers with watering just like any other fertilizer does.
Dave
My variety is the Toma Verde I believe which as far as I can tell is a pretty standard version.
I actually dont have another tomatillo plant and have no issues with getting the fruit. Its the fruit itself that is tiny. I do however have a tomato right next to it, and the plant is in the crux of the local Hummingbird Interstate. Its covered in hummingbird poo--they love to perch on the cage to rest as they zoom between my fountain and the olive tree just above. Would they be the reason it is getting pollination?
I am wondering if the fruit will get larger as the summer goes on? Or if I am just stuck with micro-fruit. I did puree some of them for salsa this morning, so I can use them... Just would love to know if there's anything I can do to beef them up a bit.
tundrah, I don't know if you're asking about the hummingbirds or the tomato as possibly being involved in pollination, but neither one would be. Tomatillos are in a completely different genus and species than are tomatoes and tomato pollen can't pollinate tomatillo bloosoms. And Hummingbords are not known to pollinate either tomatillos or tomatoes or anything else that I know of.
But if you read some of the links I gave in that Google link you'll find that almost ANY Physalis ( same genus as tomatillos) can serve to pollinate tomatillo blossoms if within so many meters away, I forget the exact distance, but it's in that Purdue article.
Often folks will ask about the little green nubbin that can be seen inside a tomato blossom which is the tomato ovary, and I think what you might be seeing is the ovary inside the tomatillo blossoms. And no, it isn't going to enlarge and form a normal size berry b'c pollination has not occurred.
Carolyn
Glad you see it too! Ok, so all of my plants (Save 1 CP) were started from seed that I purchased from Tomatofest. I started them all in a flat in little rows and then transplanted into plastic cups. The stupice and Homer Fikes had lower germination rates than some of the others, but the ones that did germinate did well enough once I potted them up.
And actually, my Homer fikes which only 3 survived were very small when I planted them out and they were planted out weeks after the Stupice as I was still trying to hand sift dirt to fill my last two beds. The Homer Fikes though are just as big, if not bigger than the stupice and have decent foliage.
I think thats a different topic alltogether, but perhaps it's possible that there was some stress as a seedling that is still effecting them? It is weird though because they have so many fruit trusses. You can see the tops of the stupice plants there is a lot of yellow. I am a little concerned with the fruits getting sun scald.
One other bad thing is that they are on the furthest south/east side of the beds, so they only get shaded by thier neighbors in late afternoon.
CH
Here is a possible scenario I just thought about. Being as this is the first year on these raised beds, perhaps I inadevertantly layered the cardboard thicker under that paticular spot, and maybe the plants are just having a hard time getting the roots to grow through it? It's just a little strang because they have so much more fruiting clusters than any other of my varieties.
CH
Agree. If your plants were all heavily mulched with straw or hay or one of the many similar mulches as they should be then it wouldn't hurt anything for them to contact the ground. Not to mention that your soil moisture levels would be stabilized and less likely to affect the quality issues of the fruit like flavor, splitting, cracking, tough skins, etc.
Dave
Do you think it might work to do as you suggested above, but with the hose nozzle? This way I can keep the water off the leaves - mostly - but still try to simulate rain?
Not really as there is a much greater chance of triggering BER from over-watering. That is the trade off here - preventing BER from developing vs. getting the leaves wet this one time. After all we aren't talking about doing it all the time and it won't be the first time they got wet either.
As I said above I do NOT normally recommend this as I am well aware of the reasons for not doing it.
Your choice.
Dave
If you haven't done it yet then today will be a good day to do it. Lower temps, humidity should favor you.