16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

The three numbers in a fertilizer description tell you the amount of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium (otherwise known by the chemical symbols N-P-K). Note that the three elements are in alphabetical order: that's how to remember which is which.

The numbers refer to the percentage of each element in the fertilizer. So a 10-10-10 fertilizer has the same balance as a 3-3-3 fertilizer -- but the first has more of each and so would probably cost more. 70% of the first and 91% of the second are something other than N, P, and K.

As for why plants need these elements, here's what BHG has to say:
http://www.bhg.com/advice/gardening/basics/what-do-nitrogen-phosphorus-and-potassium-that-are-contained-within-fertilizers-do-for-plants/

momof5sons: Sorry, I forgot to explain the bit about organic fertilizer.

Whether or not the fertilizer is organic depends on what the manufacturer used to make it. Some 10-10-10 fertilizers are organic, others are not.

Here's a thread on the Organic Gardening forum which talks about organic sources of phosphorus.
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/organic/msg0216391932711.html

You'd think for the price they'd have perfect quality control!

I was just thinking the same think Tracy!

Day time temperature at that time is 30-35C & night time temperature is 18/22C.

Days = 86 - 95 Fahrenheit
Nights = 64 - 72 Fahrenheit

azee's page says he's in Pakistan.

azee, how often do you water?

Thanks a lot homegardenpa & missingtheobvious,
I don't have pictures right now, may be i can have few with in few days from a friend of mine. I will post them if available.
I must add.
I am talking about open field commercial tomatoes. Due to being cultivated in coastal areas the watering intervals through forrow irrigation stays around 8-15 days.
I must add.
This environment does't effects two hybrid varieties. Rest, none of any variety survives this environment.
Those are:
1: 1359 F1 Hybrid by Syngenta Seeds.
2: Dominator F1 Hybrid by Seminis seeds.
I could not figure out what characteristics these both varities posseses that enables these two varieties to survive the environment.
What you say?
I am looking for more hybrids that can fullfil seed consumption in our area & to come over the actual problem.
looking for any help.

I have about 20 plants 8-10 are Damage.. Some definitely won't make it.. Also I live in central Illinois.. Well I'm glad to hear it's more like 30 days to recover still have some hope then.. So would pulling the fruit help or not?

If your weather is good enough that the plants will keep setting fruit all summer, you can pull the fruit if you want.

If they were mine I wouldn't, because it's about to get really hot here and the plants won't set fruit when it gets too hot. If I were going to keep the plants I'd want to keep all the fruit I could get.

This looks similar to what I had. It could be one of several diseases. If it is a fungus, it needs Maneb/Manacosib or if bacterial spot, needs copper.

Gary,

It's OK, I am NOT infallible. LOL! I made the unwarranted assumption that kdup had grown those plants from seeds. Silly me. My apologies for snapping back, it was uncalled for.

kdup,

Since you are unsure of the history of those patio plants, it is possible that a mercy killing might be in order. That is of course entirely up to you. Personally, I don't think it is necessary. Let me explain.

The unaffected leaves look nice and green, the stems are stocky and appear healthy. I'd even go so far as to say that the seedlings had probably been hardened off prior to your being "gifted" with them. I suspect the black spots might be where the plants got some sunburn when they were first exposed to the great outdoors. Sunburned tomatoes will turn white, then the area will die and blacken. (Been there, done that.) That could also account for the crispy edges on the leaves, as could overloving with fertilizer.

The yellowing of leaves is a classic symptom of overwatering, see the link below.

What I would reccomend if you want to try the plants:

• First: Get some of those 20 ounce plastic cups, make two or three 1/4" holes in the bottom, and pot the tomatoes up in a quality "soilless" growing medium. Don't use moisture control types, they don't drain well in containers. Make sure it does not say on the package that it is "Not for use in containers" or "Soil".

• Second: Water well, but don't leave them standing in water more than 30 minutes (I water my baby tomatoes by putting water in the bottom of the tray they are in and after 30 minutes I drain off any that has not been absorbed.) Wait until the cups are fairly light until you water again. It will vary with the size of the plants, the ambient temperatures and humidity. If the leaves start to droop, you waited a tad too long, but they will recover if you haven't waited too long. **Smile**

• Third: Restart the hardening off process. Give the plants a few days to adapt to potting up, then put them out in the shade for a couple of hours and increase the time they spend outdoors every day until they are out most of the day and spend some of the time in the sun.

• You can trim off the leaves that have the damage on them if you want to, and you can actually do it at any time, just be aware that if you take too many of the leaves, the tomatoes will be longer in recovering.

• Once the plants have been in the larger plastic cups for 10 days or so, I would evaluate whether or not they look like plants you want to save.

That's

Betsy

Here is a link that might be useful: Signs & Symptoms of Overwatering Tomatoes

I harvested all my seeds last year from 4 different plants and had no problems.

I think it might help if I link to the article I was referring to b'c there are many many variables that are involved with the statistics of cross pollination, etc. and while I could discuss them, there's no reason to b/c the article does an excellent job of doing so.

That link is below.

I also encourage folks to look at the articles in the FAQ's before they post b/c some of the most asked questions here at GW in this Forum are answered in some of those articles.

Which is why they were written in the first place. ( Smile)

The search feature is at the bottom of the page and sometimes you have to use different words to find something, that I know.

And Google is your friend if all other sources don't tell you what you want to know.

Just a bit of history here.

Initially tomatoes were discussed in the vegetable Forum but it got to the point that that Forum was being clogged up with tomato questions, so Spike, the original owner of GW, started this tomato Forum and at the same time put up the Pest and Disease Forum as well as the photo Gallery and the Seed Exchange, which is supposed to be an exchange for tomato seeds only.

Now I see more and more pest and disease questions being asked in this general discussion Forum rather than the Pest and Disease Forum, and I don't know why. I haven't been to the PEst Forum in a long while and that b'c I spent many years there, along with a few others, answering questions and doing so for sometimes several hours each day.

I figure I've made my contribution as far as pests and diseases go and it's time for others to step up, learn from others and share. There's still the Problem Solver in the Pest Forum which can be and has been helpful to many.

GW is not the main place where I read and post, which is true for some others here as well, but I like to stop by from time to see if there's any threads where I can help/

So please do take a look at the link below re cross pollination. And if you have time, the other articles in the FAQ section.Forget the one about varieties b'c it's way out of date and Tania's website is the best place to go for that IMO, but not for F1 hybrids, with few exceptions, just OP's, some heirlooms, some not and she features pages for way over 3,000 varieties now.

Thanks.

Carolyn

I mention this

Here is a link that might be useful: Cross Pollination

I have been thinking the same thing, Ohiofem.... the farmer's market is open again on Saturday, and honestly I got the Roman Candle only because they did not have any of the paste tomatoes I wanted in stock last week. Maybe it's a sign.... I did cover the poor bare stem with a milk jug. If it's sprouting and growing by Saturday, I'll call it another sign. If not, I'm going to head back on Saturday to try and pick up an Opalka or a San Marzano.

Sunnibel, good to know about the hornworms... and there are PLENTY of birds around, so I'd be happy to know they're getting munched. I hope the dipel isn't too harmful to birds.

Excited more than anything to finally have my new raised bed in the ground and to have tomatoes growing!

Lucille,

My experienced guess would be on deer or rabbit munching. The Repels All should be a good choice to thwart a mammal critter. The plant will be slow and stunted, but should grow and produce. I had any number of critter problems including curious birds until I put a Wall 'O Water over each seedling. Not necessarily to extend the season but to protect against gusting winds and curious critters. -Randy

I've notice the exact same symptoms on one of my cherokee purples. A few days ago I hacked off all the lower limbs and all the effected leaves and have not noticed any new yellowing. The top of the plant still looks a bit droopy compared to the others but it is still adding height and setting new fruit. I have a close eye on it and plan to pull it if it continues to develop yellow leaves. I am afraid it is some sort of bacterial wilt since I have seen cucumber beetles around. Don't want to risk letting it spread.

Also, I wouldn't even consider blaming the heat until your highs and lows are consistently about 95/80.

Half a lifetime ago, I grew tomatoes for 8 years in the Chicago suburbs. Municipal water. No problems.

Bigpinks, where did you get your EML from? Was it - oh shucks, I forget the nursery's name - the one in Huntington that's been carrying them forever? If so, the reason yours might not be doing as well this year, Aunt Mary Lou Estler told me that after she took the little seedlings to them they didn't pot them up into the bigger containers for several weeks. She is VERY upset with them.

Oh, but, get this: she told me she was poking aroung the basement a few weeks ago and ran across some Mortgage Lifter seeds marked 1964. She thought, "Oh what the heck" and tossed a bunch of them in seed starter. Guess what? 2 of them came up!!!! We can't wait to see how the tomatoes from those plants compare to the tomatoes off the others.

Happy gardening!
Edie

You're welcome. Yes, you found the right one.

I'm growing too many varieties this year, and needed to know which are what height so I can make the best use of a really mixed bag of old/new low/medium ring supports, 100' of 6' stock panel trellis, and however much Florida weave is necessary to handle the rest. So I was checking all the varieties at both those sites and recording the heights in a new category on my (embarrassingly-long) master list.

I was surprised how few I found on Ventmarin; in my memory, when I didn't care about height, they always listed it!

I had a couple of years of French in college, but the online dictionaries aren't much help with horticultural terms. My main problem at Ventmarin, though, is that when I see the word "cerise," I keep thinking pink rather than cherry....

I am growing Bush Tomatoes this year because I just didn't want to hassle with 8-10' tall plants on my back deck again.

So I chose one called Better Bush that only gets a max of 4' tall and produces copious amounts of 4" tomatoes that have a really good old time tomato flavor.

Just grow Bush Tomatoes and you are good to go.

I have one 4' tall planted about 7 weeks ago and has at least 60 tomatoes on it right now, have harvested 6 so far, 3 were small 2 1/2" and 3 decent size 3 1/2 to 4".
most all the rest look like they are going to be mostly 4".
the other one I planted 4 weeks ago and it is 3' tall with tons of blossoms and 9 small tomatoes already, that one will take over when the first one dies out in a few weeks.
When that one dies I will plant one more, probably about first of August to take over in October.

Is is possible to plant more than one tomato at a time in one spot

Most tomatoes are large (i.e. broad) plants, unless you prune heavily (some people prune to one stem or two). Obviously, the fewer stems, the less fruit, so the only reason for pruning heavily is lack of space.

If you had two varieties and only had space for one plant, you could plant them in the same hole. They would need more water, fertilizer, etc., and they probably wouldn't be happy. Unless the two varieties had very different fruit, you might have difficulty recognizing which variety you were eating.

Last year I bought a Black Krim seedling. It was actually two plants in one pot; I think I wasn't aware of that when I planted it -- just thought it was one plant with a sucker (one of the terms for a tomato branch) growing from the underground part of the stem (I had other seedlings like that). But when the plant bore two kinds of fruit it was obviously two plants -- and at that point I began giving them extra water and fertilizer. They were crowded and not real happy, and the BK died before the end of the season.

can there be more than one planted in a container

Raybo/rnewste puts two tomato plants in his homemade rectangular Earth-tainers, which have a total growing medium of 24 gallons -- so 12 gallons per plant.

Now if you were growing dwarf varieties, you wouldn't need as much space or as large a container.

So in other words, everything depends on how much room you have, which varieties you're growing, and how large the containers are.

Even big containers, you'd have to heavily prune if they are indeterminates. My 17 gallon is already filled up by my Brandy Boy

garystpaul -- I have 9 plants in containers on my patio .
To date I have used insecticidal soap and seaweed foliar spray and that has helped some , but the whiteflies are not totally gone . Any advice you may offer is appreciated .

for this small number of plants I would put rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol and water (ratio of 1 part alcohol, two parts water) into a spray bottle with a few drops of liquid soap as a surfactant. Spray the entire plant, especially undersides of leaves, to the point of run-off. This works for me. Good luck. Gary

As soon as my plants put out good sized leaves above the first level, I cut off the lower ones. If you go out after a rain and see that dirt has splashed up on to lower leaves, you might want to cut those off as well.

To avoid disease problems, mulch well from the day you plant out, so that the leaves don't touch the actual soil (even if they do touch the mulch because the plant is still so young).

Then once the plant is larger, cut off the lower leaflets which touch the mulch so slugs can't eat the leaves.