16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

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SCKat

These might be the brandywine tomatoes. I pulled two of those and two cherokee purples.

I did notice at the start of the season that the tops of my brandywine had been either eaten or something.

Would a rodent eat the tops of the beans too?

    Bookmark     July 6, 2012 at 7:50PM
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helenh(z6 SW MO)

You can easily have hornworms and not see them. You don't see any slug slime do you? The tomato of the left looks like it has sun scald.

    Bookmark     July 7, 2012 at 9:43AM
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MrsJustice(Hampton Va.)

Happy late Birthday

    Bookmark     July 6, 2012 at 4:55PM
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dickiefickle(5B Dousman,Wi.)

Tomatos are self pollinating ,just shke yhe plants every day

    Bookmark     August 10, 2011 at 9:13AM
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MrsJustice(Hampton Va.)

I will tell you how to pollinate your tomatoes as farmer did 100's year ago. This is for all plants that have both male and female, mostly found in heirloom or open pollination plants in hot weather.

Farmer back than use to take small stick to hand pollinate when temperatures were over 80's to ensure productivity for market when suffering weather like this. This is very labor intensives. If you take a box of tooth picks and use a clean one for each variety, with very clean hands in between or "a change of plastic gloves. You can successfully take each tomato flower softly in your fingers and pollinate each and every flower, especially in hot weather like this. .

Farmer Joyce Beggs

    Bookmark     July 6, 2012 at 4:52PM
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dickiefickle(5B Dousman,Wi.)

To reitterate
"
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And backing your Paypal with a checking account is how they verify its you . Go to Paypal and read the scam warnings for more onfo. "
And for you that are complaining the most ,go read what steps Paypal has advised you to take to keep your account safe .Remember Paypal does NOT make a profit from you being ripped off. Take toime to read.educate.and arm yourselves,take responsibility ,you allow it to happen by doing nothing.

    Bookmark     July 6, 2012 at 1:30AM
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colokid(5)

I have had good luck finding and getting seed from E-bay sellers. Like all E-bay things let your second sense warn you of bad ones. Better luck than with one well know highly publicized seller who's last order was two wrong out of eight. Its so easy to find the one you are looking for with out hunting through a bunch of catalogs.

    Bookmark     July 6, 2012 at 4:47PM
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Is this fungus or blight? image 3Same plant, different set of leaves.
Posted by jennypat Zone 3b NW MN(Zone 3b NW MN) July 2, 2012
14 Comments
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fmart322(Z6SNJ)

Hey dave, you mention contaminated soil, I think I have that. I get a blight/fungus every year. Now I rotate my tomatoes as best I can but with a limited garden size rotation consists of a few feet here and there.

Now, lets say my soil is sick, how can I cure it? Any advice?

    Bookmark     July 6, 2012 at 4:58AM
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Tomatobaby

I crushed a probiotic pill and mixed it with some water and sprayed/rubbed it all over my tomato plant as well as watered the remaining amount at the base and my plant seems not to have gotten any worse.

I tried it bc half my tomato plant at the time was yellowing and I pretty much thought I would have to pull it out in a week or so. I also cut off the yellow/spotted leaves that were really badly afflicted and now it looks like the yellowing/spotty spreading has slowed down. I see more green than yellow. So I at least extended the life on it by a few weeks.

Just so you know it will leave a white residue/powder on the leaves that I just leave on there. Hopefully it keeps the fungus away.

I wish I had taken a picture so I could show everyone how bad it looked before ... it isn't great now but it is looking much better so I at least will have this tomato around for another 5-6 weeks or longer if it actually gets better.

I have a little one that gets into everything so I didn't want to use any fungicides.

    Bookmark     July 6, 2012 at 9:25AM
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jean001a(Portland OR 7b)

Did you add any manure? Fresh or composted? Bagged or from a farm?

If so, check the info about contaminated organic matter, the clopyralid issue mentioned above. (The same effect with several related compounds also.)

See the extensive info here: http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/soilmgmt/clopyralid.htm

And do the easy bio-assay to determine if your soil is contaminated.

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

    Bookmark     July 3, 2012 at 12:42AM
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capoman(5a)

manda: Ontario has pretty strict rules on herbicides. For the most part they are banned, but allowed for health reasons such as poison ivy elimination. Townships are allowed a bit of leeway for road maintenance, but not pathways. If you have neighbours using them, you have good reason to tell them to stop. It may be that if you can identify the source, you can ask them to stop for legal reasons.

    Bookmark     July 5, 2012 at 3:24PM
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oliveoyl3

Great report bigpinks! Just the inspiration I needed to hear at the start of our summer weather pattern. While many of you have had warm & dry weather it's just beginning here in WA state. Our forecast finally has all suns & O% precip for over a week! We'll dry out a bit & put some more growth on tomatoes.

I removed all my plastic surrounds just yesterday. Lots of blooms. Some fruit set. Some fruit turning lighter green. That's how far we are behind most of you with warm weather. Overnight lows will still be in 50s, but no longer 40s. July & August are our summer months with sometimes extending into Sept. until the fall rains begin again.

I'm going to out do some finger pokes to check soil moisture. I want those plants to start off well watered & ready to grow.

Corrine

    Bookmark     July 5, 2012 at 12:08PM
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bigpinks

Best of luck Corrine

    Bookmark     July 5, 2012 at 2:06PM
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RpR_(3-4)

Removing excess leaf stems removes excess weight causing broken stems and allow more air and light into the plant.

    Bookmark     July 5, 2012 at 12:21AM
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digdirt2(6b-7a No.Cent. AR HZ8 Sun-35)

Removing excess leaf stems removes excess weight causing broken stems and allow more air and light into the plant.

It also increases sun scald of the fruit and decreases the plants ability to photosynthesize energy for growth and production.

chuckby - why not browse through all the other discussions here on pruning for more information? There are many of them that already detail all the reasons - both pro and con - already running. I linked a long one from this front page below.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: to prune or not to prune

    Bookmark     July 5, 2012 at 10:08AM
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bingster

Chris,

Sorry...meant humid, not "humis"!! Google tomato plant diseases or something to that effect. There are lots of sites that show good pics of different problems. Then you can compare to what you've got. Also, "DIGDIRT" is very knowledgeable (much more so than I). Give him another yell. There's early blight, late blight, bacterial spot and a bunch of other problems. I've gotten blight this year and just took up my first plant which has wilt, I believe. Have never has any problems growing in containers but think the very hot and humid weather this early has caused some of this.

cheers and good luck

Bing

    Bookmark     May 31, 2010 at 2:01PM
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PatSteveC(zone 6)

My Better Boys are not doing well. I have one plant that is stunted. It does have a few tomatoes that came on early. But the plant has not grown much since and has just a few "small" flowers. The other Better boy is not flowering. Between the two Better Boys are Early girls which are doing real well. I also have four heirlooms that are beautiful, tall and filled with fruit. My soil was perfect in the beginning. I sent a sample to have it analyzed before planting and amended the soil according to the university's advice. I only fertilized once about a month ago with MG tomato and veg food. I water (with a soaker hose twice a week for 40 min. each time. We are not having much rain and the temps have been in the 90's for two weeks. Any suggestions? Thanks!

    Bookmark     July 5, 2012 at 8:52AM
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Nu_2_Gardening

You were absolutely right about the catfacing. Posted a pic in a separate thread. Unfortunately I had already picked them fearing it was some big bad disease....ugh. Oh well. Thanks for the great advice!Whatis funny is thaty you can actually see a catface in this picture.

    Bookmark     July 5, 2012 at 6:20AM
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Djole(6)

One can use catfaced tomatoes for a Rorschach test ;)
Last year i've seen my aphid population on peppers migrate completely once i've put a container with nasturtium majus (tropaeolum) next to it - they just switched from pepper to it and made it much easier for me to remove them. It's also edible, you can add it to salads, both flowers and leaves.

    Bookmark     July 5, 2012 at 8:34AM
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b_kct

No problem, I had same questions couple years ago, and my ugly and disfigured Black Krims actually tasted better than normal ones.

But it could be because most of the pretty ones were given out to friends and family :)

    Bookmark     July 4, 2012 at 10:21PM
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cole_robbie(6)

Peaches do the same thing.

    Bookmark     July 4, 2012 at 11:58PM
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dickiefickle(5B Dousman,Wi.)

Diseased ,probably from soil borne disease splashed on the leaves during watering.
Trim off affected leaves.
Trim off first 8 to 12 inches of branches and good leaves (so they Don;t get splashed on )

Here is a link to a chart of diseases

Here is a link that might be useful: Disease ID

    Bookmark     July 4, 2012 at 9:03PM
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oliveoyl3

use bamboo poles & attach corners with rope instead

think wind + fruit + cloth = broken stems

    Bookmark     July 4, 2012 at 4:20PM
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digdirt2(6b-7a No.Cent. AR HZ8 Sun-35)

Agree. A separate suspension system out of direct contact with the plants will work much better. If for no other reason than you need a good air space between the tops of the plants and covering to avoid trapping heat.

Dave

    Bookmark     July 4, 2012 at 4:24PM
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cole_robbie(6)

Isn't it funny how the "right way" to garden is determined by the weather? Which, of course, none of us can predict, especially lately. If I knew it would be cold and wet, I'd plant in a ridge of soil and cover it with black plastic. But then the weather changes, and the 100 degree sunshine comes out to cook everything.

A large-scale tomato farmer near me puts out about 40 acres of tomatoes every year. This year he switched from black plastic to the kind that is white on top and does not get so hot. They have a single stake holding up each plant. I know they have a lot of sun scald this year.

My shallow-root tomatoes not only did not grow well, their taste quickly went downhill as the plants got worse. Sweetness went down, skins got tougher, and there was less flesh to the inside of the fruit.

    Bookmark     July 4, 2012 at 11:13AM
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harveyhorses(7 Midlothian Va)

My main concern was the need to fertilize and not over water, sooo not an issue three days later. They got their dose, and no rain, so wait for the sun to drop and give the poor things some H2O. They hold up in this heat a LOT better than I do, I wilt after about 45 min.
I guess I didn't add enough 'organic matter' last winter.

    Bookmark     July 4, 2012 at 4:22PM
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cole_robbie(6)

"Maybe add a little Tomato Tone in the potting mix."

Whoops. When I said "Floramato," I meant Tomato Tone. My fault.

    Bookmark     July 4, 2012 at 2:01PM
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Nunyabiz1(7)

I am pretty sure if I put fish juice and molasses in my potting mix that the Ecoterrorist (Squirrels) would dig up everything I have. Probably would call in the raccoon's at night also.

    Bookmark     July 4, 2012 at 4:19PM
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