16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
I believe that's a tomato fruitworm (same as corn earworm). The coloration varies, and the older ones have stripes. Here's a photo of a bunch of them with different coloration:
http://entoplp.okstate.edu/ddd/insects/cornearworm.htm
They mostly make deeper holes, frequently very messy.
I'll just add, not sure how you started your seedlings, but the plastic Solo drinking cups provide enough room to get tomatoes well past the stage where they are vulnerable to damping off. Once your seedlings get thier first set of true leaves, they should be potted up to at least those size cups.
From that point they should be getting as much light as possible when the weather is good. You are also in NY, so for instance, if you started your seeds April 1st, by the second or third week of april, you should have them potted up and outside when the weather is nice. The sun in NY in april is not so intense, so you don't have to be real careful about hardening off. Just put them under a tree the first few times out.
Bottom water and keep them outside when the weather is warm enough to. Cool and wet? Move them back inside, keep them in a sunroom or in a south facing window. We had plenty of sun this spring to get your palnts to a very good size. Buying a book is fine, but I have learned all of my gardening knowledge from Gardenweb and the rest of the internet. You have to read a lot of sources, you will be able to discern what is good info, what is someone selling a product, and what is someone with little experience touting thier "system" after they are 4 weeks into thier first time growing anything in thier life ever.
Best thing to do is plant them as deep as you can, use "Potting Mix" I use Miracle Grow with Moisture Control, then mix in a a bag of Moo-Nure which is cow manure and compost mix.
Make sure you drill several holes in the bottom to allow for very good drainage.
Put about 2-3" of your favorite mulch on top.
Use no less than a 15 Gallon pot, this way the watering and nutrient uptake becomes less tricky and the roots have plenty of room to spread.
Water them everyday, the excess water just drains right out.
Feed them every 9-14 days with what ever you prefer, I have been using MG for Tomatoes.
I just planted 3 Dwarfs yesterday, all in 15+ gallon pots with said mixture.
I grow in 5-gallon pots and have had tremendous luck with it. I went to Tractor Supply and bought some cages and staking materials and have constructed a sturdy cage to hold them. Just feed them every ten days and make sure they don't need for water and things will be good.
One idea for next year is to transplant some of the little ones to larger containers so they get some more roots going before final transplant. A Sharpie laboratory marker is good for marking containers or plastic utensils as markers. Printing stands up much better to sunlight than a regular marker.
We didn't actually get much rain (except for last Tuesday), but it was cold - highs around 60, lows in the high 40's - and some rain every day, sometimes a downpour for a few minutes. I held off, the plants are over a foot tall and getting leggy in the 1801 flats and 4" pots. I have been bringing them in and out of the garage each day. But the weather has broken and I'm starting to plant them today!
I think everyone here has hit the nail on the head. That was my instinct as well, but I wanted to get a second opinion. Fran35, no I haven't used manure at all in my garden. However I do suspect herbicide damage. I've been checking for whiteflies, aphids, etc but I've had a lot of spiders (that I have to try VERY hard to leave alone lol!) and I haven't seen any so I don't think that's the problem. So I pruned up the bottoms a bit (didn't want to do too much and stress them out more) so they're not hanging down in the soil now. I skipped the mulching for now. I'll save that probably for next month. Until we get well into summer, we usually get a fair amount of rain. I spread some organic tomato fertilizer today and I'll have to water it in tomorrow morning. Hopefully that will help. I just read something about too much nitrogen causing leaf roll but hopefully that's not the case here. With all the rain, I highly doubt it. The thing I suspect that has had the greatest effect on at least the upper leaves might be herbicide damage. Everyone around here has been spraying their yards regularly. I googled herbicide damage and the images look just like what I've got here. The good news is, it's not dying back so they should be just fine. I just hope it doesn't get any worse. I know it must be normal for a little bit of foliage to die off, especially around the bottom where it gets old. Plus I would think it needs to get rid of some to put more energy into the top growth. But it still makes me nervous, being a new gardener and all. Am I right about that? It's my first garden so if I mess something up and lose all my tomatoes, I'm going to be so discouraged. But I know that's how we learn. I'd just rather learn from others and not my own mistakes. lol!
So last week we had a bad thunderstorm move through. Wind gusts up to 80mph. Yikes! I've lived in Oklahoma my whole life and I don't think I've ever witnessed wind like that before. It blew our brand new grill out into the yard and banged it up. Sad face :( Anyway, I covered my pepper plants with large clay pots since they're still short enough. They did just fine thankfully. My squash plant was even small enough still to sort of be stuffed into a 3 gallon pot. It probably wasn't too comfy in there, but it didn't get any damage! It's HUGE now so I hope our severe weather is over for the season. The tomatoes had some branches that got blown around so hard that they sort of went limp. Only one small branch actually broke off so I spent an hour or so the next day strapping up the weakened ones. All is well now. Anyway, I brought in my potted plants, including a Better Bush tomato. It's working on it's second fruit set and flowering like crazy. In the last few weeks, since harvesting the first of the fruit near the bottom, the leaves at the bottom of the plant have died back. I left the pot indoors for a couple of days because the weather was still a little nuts. I don't think it liked that at all. The leaves and stems are turning yellow from the bottom up. Even the leaves around the current fruit set. I am not sure what's going on there but I did ad some home made compost to the pot a couple weeks ago. Maybe it's off balance now? I added the same compost to my peppers and squash and they are all doing great, minus a pepper blossom turning yellow and dropping here and there. Just one or two, I'm sure that's normal. They're still producing and the foliage looks fine. I put just a sprinkle of tomato fertilizer in the pot and I'll water that in tomorrow morning as well.
One last thought for the night. When I sprinkled the fertilizer around the tomatoes in the garden earlier, I noticed within minutes, ants all over the surface carrying away bits of the fertilizer. Anyone else ever seen that? Should that concern me? I just kinda thought it was neat.
Jennifer
If you gonna eat those ants, wash them first :P
Otherwise, just keep leaves off the ground either by mulching heavily or pruning anything a foot off the ground, preferably both. And dont over love/babysit them.
I have a friend who owns a waterfront summer house, who planted my seedlings both there and at regular house last year... ones he didnt have time for grew the best tomatoes.
Granted he was watering his primary house ones daily, eventhough I told him not too.
Point is, sometimes the best cure is to let em do what they do :P
well my row of planter runs North south and I get full sun from sunrise to sunset. the row is actually perpendicular to sun's patch so my North South row is good I guess. I get yor point. I plante then 20 to 24" apart. I know its a bit too close but I did well last year and I wante to get few varities this season. Good thing is if I got it mixed, I got at least 2 or 3 of a kind next to each other so that would help somewhat from overtaking issue
thanks for replying
Every year I plan to put indeterminate tomatoes with other indeterminates, and the determinates all together and every year I wind up not doing it. I plant my tomatoes three feet apart and have run them in north-south rows and in east-west rows with six feet between rows and have never seen a problem that I could say was due to mining indeterminate and determinate tomatoes.
I suppose with closer plantings, it could be a problem, but I think if your garden has full sun, it won't make a difference.
Betsy
My opinions.
Cherokee Purple is not purple. It has a clear epidermis and I refer to it as a so called pink/black. An excellent variety for almost everyone. Craig LeHoullier got the seeds from J D Green and Craig has been my best tomato friend for 20 plus years and he sent me the seeds after he first grew it out in about 1992 and I've grown it many times since. I reciprocated when I was given seeds for Indian Stripe and sent seeds to him ASAP to see if IS was what I thought it was, that is, a version of CP, and he agreed it was.
Purple Calabash I simply cannot stand the taste of, far too aggressive for me. But it's one of the few varieties that actually has some purple tint to it. So see what you think of the taste and I do know some folks who like that kind of taste.
Purple Russian I haven't grown.
Carolyn
I plan on buying 3/8" rebar from the big box store, $3 for 22' length, I will cut it into 3 lengths and I will get decent 7' sections, 12" into the ground and I got a decent 6' tall tomato stake. I want to do florida weive using these rebar stakes. This is my weekend project as my tomatoes went into ground 10 days ago and they really took off!
Many of us who can tomatoes regularly always freeze our tomatoes whole until there is enough to justify a big batch for canning. Makes them much easier to peel too. It's a common practice.
Be sure to join us over on Harvest when the time comes to can them.
Dave
I agree, herbicide drift. 2-4D can volatilize into a gas and travel far, into the miles if the conditions are right. Your neighbor might not care, but what about everyone with in a mile of you? Don't tear them out, water well and keep them well fed and they will come out of it. They don't look hurt too bad.
Jay
Wow, thanks! This makes me feel much more comfortable about leaving them in for the long haul. One of the plants that has some pretty severe curling has one ripe tomato already. I guess time will tell!