16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
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 :)
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
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
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
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.
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!
Gary, because I use some Tomato Tone for the micros, I use the cheapest 10-10-10 slow release I can find. That will take care of the basic NPK's and I can use the "good stuff" for the rest of the formula to get a fairly well balanced growing medium.
Most folks get too detailed in putting together a growing medium. Tomato plants are far more accomodating to less than perfect environments than we give them credit for. I treat them like kids. Give them the best you've got and let them adapt a bit to their environment. My formula is not perfect, but it seems to do well year after year.
Take care and don't be afraid to push the envelope from time to time. It'll teach you just how wide the window for success can be.
Ted
I haven't grown either of the varieties you named, but from what OHIOFEM says, they may crowd each other out.Although this is my first year with EBs, I would say that you get the most productivity from the largest plants if you have only one per box.
However, what worked for me this spring was to plant two plants per box: with one being an early bearing determinate and the other a large indeterminate of either an early or mid season variety.
When the determinates had produced their fruit,I took them out and left each box to the larger plant. Even though many of the tomatoes were still green, they all ripened after I wrapped each one in newspaper for a week or so.
Jan
gumby_ct's white speckles are oval cocoons belonging to a tiny wasp (the cocoons are about 1/8" tall, so it really is a tiny wasp).
By the time the cocoons appear, the hornworm is beyond moving and the wasp larvae are no longer feeding, but it's advantageous to leave the caterpillar in place so the wasps can emerge and begin their lives' work of keeping more hornworms from becoming moths and breeding another generation of worms.
I tend to see about four hornworms in the same area at a time.
Bets is right on. I have droughty sandy soil, and I put several inches of mulch around my tomatoes, and I never get BER and rarely get splitting. I also rarely have to water, even in sandy soil due to heavy mulching. When I do water, I do it deeply. At the end of the season, pulling them up, I've been amazed at how deep the roots went.
THere are several reasons for blossom drop, I got a lot last year and getting some again this year. Its some varities are affected more than others.
I have 1884 on one side, italian heirloom on center, then brandywine on another side. All fed and watered the same, get same sunlight. italian heirloom has less foilage and a lot of tomatoes while the other two simple fail to convert flowers into fruit for some reason.
I had some root knots that I discovered last year so I treated the entire area with double strength beneficial nemetoges, bonemeal, and calcium, Lets see how it goes.
Sometimes conditions are not quite ready for fruiting, while it differs from variety to variety
What varieties are you comparing it to? GG is a late season variety and they often don't set as early as many other varieties. Have you been pruning it?
I have 2 of them this year and while they are huge plants none of mine have set any fruit yet either but I know from past experience that they will later.
Dave
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.