16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

I don't see any signs of a viral disease, but it does look like hornworms have been munching on the plant in the first photo.

The leaf roll could be too much water, too little water, or even the stress of the heavy fruit load. Unfortunately it does make it easier for the hornworms to hide: their pale stripes look just like the veins on the rolled leaves.

When in doubt about hornworms, wait until it gets dark and take a handheld blacklight out and scan the plants with it. Hornworms fluoresce under blacklight just like scorpions. Makes them easy to pick out when they're literally glowing in the dark.

Definitely cat-facing, likely caused by cool weather.

I can't tell about the sibling with the small black spot. It looks as if the spot might be accompanied by a narrow line running from the stem toward the blossom end. If you do see such a line, that's called zippering, and is sometimes found with cat-facing.

Zippering is caused when part of the flower (the anther, the central "cone" of the flower) is connected abnormally to the baby fruit. Last year I found a 1" fruit with a piece of the anther (still fresh and yellow!) firmly attached on the fruit's equator like a little flag; there was a narrow zipper from stem to anther to the fruit's blossom-end.

photos of zippering (and some that aren't)

8-)

Missingtheobvious you are correct again, the small tomato does have the zipper line. Two actually. And we've had some cool nights so I'm glad to know what it is and what caused it. Thank you everyone!

A neighbor gave me 4 black tomato plants.(He didn't remember the name but his wife does, I've not remembered to ask her. LOL) One of them died, I decided to plant a sucker off one of the other plants to utilize that space and fertilizer. The adjacent plant had two trunks about the same size so I broke one of them off (almost half the plant) and planted it about 8 inches deep. If I keep it watered it should put out roots and produce fruit. I'm sure that damaged the remaining plant but sure it will recover. If not I will publish a warning on here in the future.

Topping indeterminates (digdirt Dave):

I read some threads about why this should not be done. I never have before, but am thinking about doing it, starting this year.

You said it would reduce my yield (production). I've been growing tomatoes for 8 years in 5' tall CRM cages, and have never had a ripe tomato produced from the growth above the top of the cage. (I have a short growing season, and strong winds that sharply crimp the plant over above the top rung.) I do not use green tomatoes at the end of the season.

I'm considering topping my plants this year (and pruning upper suckers as necessary to keep the plants from flopping over the top, which just makes them harder to remove from the cages at the end of the year.)

Determinate tomatoes would be a lot easier to handle. Unfortunately, I don't know where to get seed for determinate: Brandywine, Carbon, Cherokee Purple, Cuostralee, Earl's Faux, Gregori's Altai, Kellogg's Breakfast, Lucky Cross,... that I am growing this year.

I believe I will try topping half of my plants this year to see how it works and if it will make it easier to get them out of the cages at year end.

Here the supermarkets sell slicer tomato's for around $2.00 a pound. I sell mine for $1.25 a pound. Just go to your local stores see what they sell for and come down off of that some.

I agree - the .59 per lb tomatoes are nothing you would really want to eat but neither are the $2.79 heirlooms. Only way to get a good tomato seems to be road-side or grow it yourself. I would imagine anyone who has ever eaten a grocery store tomato would probably pay a premium to a home seller.

In my area, I would start at $2. If I was close to selling out I would raise prices until demand slowed down. If they started to rot, I would lower prices until they started to move. Just be flexible and you will find the sweet spot where supply and demand meet.

A weak solution of dish soap works but killing them by hand is what I do these days. I had a lot of aphids on my tomato when I transplanted them out so I killed as many as I could find by hand twice a week. Once the plants start to take off I no longer notice much aphids on there. I would suggest making sure your plants are as healthy and vigorous as possible because healthy tomato plants can easily outgrow limited amount of aphid damage.

I am more concerned about aphids if I see them on my rose bushes.

The excess nitrogen your tomatoes are getting is more harmful than the aphids. Fix the fertilizer problem and the aphids will go away.

No cherry tomatoes here yet....don't even think I have blossoms, lol.

HOWEVER! I do have green tomatoes on the non cherries. A couple tiny green romas and a hybrid variety.

I planted 300 or so plants. I can alot, we eat alot (my son eats them like apples) and I might sell some. If i have enough :)

Bitter-sweet night. Ate my first full sized cherokee purples and my last lettuce of the season. Made for some good fish taco's. Won't get to enjoy that combo again until the lettuce is back in October.

Hi RemoteDoc,

I can't tell whether it's Early Blight or Septoria, but, in either case, I recommend you pick off (and throw away) all infected leaves. Then start a regular (once every 1-2 weeks) spraying program with Daconil (AKA Ortho Garden Disease Control, amongst other brands). This will not cure the disease, but will help keep it from spreading. Also, if your plants are not mulched, you should mulch them very soon. Both of these leaf diseases are very common. With care, your plants will survive and produce a good crop. Good luck!

Thanks for everyone's input. I have trimmed all leaves I thought were infected today. It looks greener and less infected, that's for sure, but it also looks more bare! :) I will keep an eye on it, and even getting some Daconil as mentioned. Thanks again for the help!

You didn't specifically mention it, but since size is a component of the yield, I'd include that for me both eggplant and (to a lesser extent) tomatoes are generally smaller in EarthBoxes. I've always attributed this to root crowding. But I can get earlier harvests and no disease, so it is still a good trade-off.
-WC2K8

jll0306..
Thank you for mentioning those "Smart Pots" I have never heard of them before and quite likely will be buying 6-8 of them next year for the Dwarf Tomato plants IF they do really well this year.
They sound like an excellent idea, wish I had heard about them prior to buying the 15+ gallon pots I have now.

I didn't really consider 15+ gallon pots with over 55-60 quarts of soil to be "tight" for "Bush Tomatoes" that were only supposed to get no more than 36-40" tall but are now over 52" and have only stopped because I have a Bird Net over them. They were easily on their way to 5 foot or more.

Depending on how large these Dwarfs get and when I pull them how large the roots are in the pots I have now I may buy either 6-8 15 gallon or 20 gallon Smart Pots.
Will put them on plant dollys so I can roll them around and they wont rot my wood deck.

I think the largest of the Dwarfs is supposed to get no more than 4 feet tall at the most so 15 gallon pots should be ample.

Now if I were growing my usual 10 foot tall indeterminate's like I have in the past I would probably put them in 65 Gallon smart pots.
No reason at all for container grown tomatoes to not do every bit as well as ones grown in the ground, all you need is proper amount of soil and 5-10 gallons is not it.

Tomatoes with psychological problems? Who knew?

And all these years I thought it was the tomato growers who were suffering from stress ... caused by all those uncooperative plants, vicious hornworms, and wildlife hooligans ... not to mention the vagaries of weather....

I 'think' Steven means physiological, which is what tomato leaf roll is, a physical problem not a psychological one.

And I agree they show definite signs of tomato leaf roll which is caused by inconsistent soil moisture/watering (one extreme to another), not over-watering.

As to the other issues, trying to grow tomato plants in straw bales is one of the many fad approaches. it is not used by many so it is difficult for any of us to advise you on the issues associated with it.

Clearly, inconsistent moisture levels around the roots would be an obvious problem. The straw's inability to retain nutrients for the plants would be another.

You might get more help from one of the websites that advocate this approach to growing tomatoes.

Dave

Sorry about the pics guys, still learning :) and thank you for the input i shall remember next time :D and thank you "Robeb" for putting the pics up like that :)

So could someone tell if they know whats wrong with the tomato?? I've tried researching this but to no avail and if it's something I can prevent then I'd like to before the other tomatoes come.

Also is it possible to for a tomato plant to be stunted due to low levels of nitrogen? I tested my soil and the nitrogen level is pretty low and I have a tomato plant that has been stunted but the leaves are green and they are not curling or turning leathery and the roots looked normal too.

Thank you

If you have short growing season like here in Texas. Before heat arrives. Best to plant small to mid size tomatoes for fast growth. Early girl. Celebrity. Heat wave. Solar flare

Will they still grow- is it the length of the plants life I need to watch and not the conditions?

Sorry I missed this when I first read your post but missing has addressed it well - conditions is the focus. Given perfect conditions - which sadly no one has - indeterminates would serve us all well. But since we don't have ideal conditions then either type or best yet, a combination of both types, works.

Dave

The picture is rather blurry so I can't see the inner part of the spot, but if you see concentric rings, then it's Early Blight ( A. solani), and if you don't it's probably Septoria Leaf Spot.

Take of all affected leaves ASAP and dispose of them.

Since the two pathogens above are two of the most common fungal foliage pathogens what you need to do is to get on a regular spray schedule with a good anti-fungal and what I suggest is Daconil which works quite well.

What the molecules do is to attach to the specific sites on the upper leaf surface and prevent the spores of either of the above from attaching.

Two of the best Daconil preps are Ortho Garden Disease Control and Bonide and you MUST check the label to be sure that the active ingredient, chlorothalonil, is present at a concentration of 29.6% b'c there are products with different concentrations.

THe spores of both are spread by wind and embedded in rain drops. And you want to get rid of all the affected leaves b'c if you don't the spores will fall to the ground and then next year you can have what's called splashback infection which happens when rain or irrigation splashes those spores back onto the lower foliage and infection starts. Mulching can help prevent splashback infection.

So I assume from what you said that you've never seen this kind of infection before which means that your soil is not yet infested, if you will, with spores from last year.

Carolyn

Bacterial leaf spot. You can control it. But not cure it.

Haha, nope, not the Lake Erie snow belt, ther Lake Ontario Snow belt. From Oswego to Syracuse up to Lowville and all throughout Oneida county.

Did a small college stint in Oswego, that place gets some snow let me tell you.

CH

I know very well where you are now, and for sure mountains of snow in some years.

I spent 4 years in Ithaca up on the hill and it's said that two thirds of the worst weather passes through there and when asked where the other third is, the answer is it's there all the time. LOL

Driving the Thruway home from Syracuse back to the Albany area all those years was often a grueling task in the winter. But as my father oft said, a heavy snow cover is the poor man's best fertilizer.

And so it is.

Carolyn, who doesn't want snow right now but sure could use some rain for it's very dry here right now.

The $2 needed to buy seeds is well worth the investment. Grocery store varieties are developed for commercial farming conditions (high chemicals and water) and to produce uniform looking fruit. There is no regard for taste in the breeding.

Thanks guys. But I am really doing this just for fun. We are allowed 3 pots in our apartments and I have over 20 1-3 gallon pots and many tiny herb pots (translated yogurt containers). I dunno when they are going to be tossed out. Besides this is kind a fun, not knowing what's going to show up. hehehe! may be some day I might end up with frankestomato :-D. Thanks dickiefickle, biggest and healthiest it is!