16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
I have a Rapitest PH meter that read below 7 most of the time. Then after not using it for a year, I took off the back panel to see if it had a battery that needed to be replaced. Well, no battery, but one of the two wire leads was not even soldered, just wrapped around the terminal. No wonder these meters always read 7!!
Char35:
I get an annual soil test for my garden. My garden is amended and fertilized uniformly. I sample my garden soil from several different locations, mix them in a bucket, and scoop several cups of the mixture into the sample bag the extension agent provides.
I believe the measures I use to till my garden every year negate any benefit of paying to test soil from different areas.
He sends it to KS. State Univ. Lab and they test it for the attributes I request. I tell the extension agent I would like amendment and fertilizer recommendations, and I get a report on the condition of my soil, (NPK levels and pH), organic material level, amount of fertilizer I should add initially and how I should side-dress crops through the season, and if I need to add sulfur to reduce the pH.
Cost me $16.60 this year, including postage for the sample sent to be tested. I realize my state income taxes probably also included a charge for this service, but that would have been paid if I had not used the service.
Hills and mounds have a new life Carolyn regardless of the seeds. :) Mounded rows aka wide-row gardening and hill planting to control weeds and improve soil drainage made a big come back right about the time of the raised bed revolution.
And yes they can make a big difference when it comes to preventing BER in in-ground planting IF one can anticipate the spring weather accurately. Not to mention they warm the soil much faster for spring planting. Hill planting also benefits vining vegetables in that they better support the vines and you get less stem breaks.
Regina - is that landscape fabric in the bottom of those beds? If so it is slowing your drainage. One reason why many recommended against using it under raised beds is because you can get water pooling in the bottom of the beds. Often if there is a poor performing spot or plant ramming a metal rod down through the fabric several times will eliminate the problems. And what is the soil like under the beds? Was it clay or rocky and slow to drain? If so then drainage given all your rain is even more problematic.
Just some thoughts to consider.
Dave
Dave, the landscape fabric is not under the bed with the problem. It's only under the new bed -- the plants in the new bed with the garden cloth are doing beautifully. We decided to try the cloth in the new bed b/c we have a problem with bermudagrass coming up in the 2 older beds. We also decided at that time, to spread the cloth all around the outside of the older beds in preparation to put down pebbles but then later pulled it up after deciding that the rocks would be too costly. The soil under the beds doesn't have much clay or rock at all.
Too little water is a possibility. Root damage during transplanting. Another possibility is bacterial wilt.
Here is a link that might be useful: My garden and tomatoes
Some transplant shock is normal. And drooping (loss of leaf turgor) of the leaves, as opposed to actual wilting, is common in the worst heat of the day. It is the leafs physiological way of conserving moisture, preventing/restricting transpiration (loss of water through the stoma of the leaves). Assuming soil moisture levels are sufficient and consistent, then as the plants mature and the roots expand and develop the symptoms are less noticeable.
Without a picture or more details it isn't possible to know if there something else going on but if they are fine in the morning and perk up again in the cooler evening then that is the likely explanation.
Dave
We have many great FAQs here. Well worth exploring all of them.
Pollen-producing plants are any and all of the so-called bee attracting plants - herbs, especially borage, as well as most annual flowers and many of the flowering perennials, flowering shrubs, and of course fruit trees.
So asters, clover, marigolds, zinnias, bee balm, lavender, cat nip, sunflowers, blueberry bushes, apple trees, etc.
Dave
I agree with Dave, but no matter what you plant to try and divert pollinators from cross pollinating, it's never perfect, actually far from it.
Remember that some pollinators like sweat bees and others can and do fly for miles. So it's best to save seeds from fruits early on if you have the most pollinators later in the season and vice versa. I always saved seeds from the fruits in late summer and early Fall for that reason/
How careful a person wants to be in preventing X pollination depends on what they intend to do with the saved seeds. If for home use only, OK, but if trading seeds, which I never do except in rare circumstances and only with a few friends whom I've known for decades, or listing them in the SSE YEarbook, then perhaps more care should be taken.
The only almost 100% method of ensuring pure saved seed is to bag blossoms. I never could do that b'c I was growing many 100's of plants and varieties each season, but my cross pollination rate was only about 5% where I lived, which means that 5/100 varieties with saved seed could be expected to have some cross pollinated seed.
And of the hundreds and hundreds of varieties I've listed in the SSE Yearbook as well as offering in my seed offers, I think there are less than 20 that turned out to be cross pollinated.
Never save seed from just one fruit of a variety, better is many fruits from one plant, better still is fruits from several plants of the same variety, etc.
I can have maybe 2000 seeds of a variety and distribute seeds and only after a certain number are distributed does an offtype show up.
And that's b'c all it takes is ONE fruit where self pollenization has not resulted in all ovules in the tomato ovary, seeds to be, to be cross pollinated.
Carolyn
You need to let us know if there are any signs of pests - either spider mites or aphids - as that is the most likely cause given the symptoms displayed in the photos.
But no it isn't early blight or any other disease. Have you sprayed with with something? Perhaps over-fertilized them?
Otherwise I'd agree with environmental damage of some sort.
Dave
Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I can breathe a sigh of releif now I know it is not any kind of blight. There is no sign of any other pests around. I have had aphids and white fly in previous years, but nothing else is clearly visible. I'll get my magnifying glass out and have a closer look. These tomatoes have only been fertilized once or twice with a very weak solution of soluble fertilizer, but they are really overdue for planting out and probably a bit over crowded. They are still indoors because we have been having such cold weather. I probably should set the fan on them a bit. I have not done that this year. I will clean them up and start hardening them off over the weekend. I was so proud of myself it would have been very hard to take if I had to toss them. Happy Gardening, all!!
P.S. Enjoyed your site Kr222, gave me some ideas for my salvia seedlings. N.
I don't have a reference, but I have an anecdote. My plants are arranged in a straight line from east to west, with afternoon shade from the west.
The size of the plants are small to large like Russian dolls, with the smallest plant on the east end getting the most sun and the largest plant on the west end. I've also noticed a little leaf roll on the two plants that get the most sun, so I just put a makeshift covering on the tops of their cages a few days ago. The leaf rolling seems to be getting better since I did that.
But each of my plants is a different variety, so it could just be a coincidence even though it seems to be sun-related.
As mentioned above you must remove all of the affected foliage and dispose of it. Fungicides don't cure they just help slow the spread and they must be used weekly per instructions on the label.
If this was the only infected plant I'd recommend pulling and disposing of the whole plant to prevent the spread to other plants. Since it isn't all you can do is slow the spread as much as possible.
The only way to prevent fungus infections is to spray the plants from day one of plant out.
Dave
Thanks again Dave.
I checked the link you provided and they are brown mar orated stink bugs! I'm just glad I found them before they all hatched and created real damage. I will have to be really vigilant and check all my toms everyday. At least they are pretty big and easy to see!
Wind chill may be a factor here, even for plants in a hoop house. But since your unprotected plants didn't suffer damage on the night in question, I suspect the curling has a different cause, maybe even overheating during the day, or perhaps a disease. In any case, I'm with your father on this one. Let them be and see what happens. I don't think it would hurt at this stage to trim the damaged leaves. And keep an eye out for possible diseases. Good luck with them.
Keep in mind that hot air goes up, cold air goes down. The weather services measure temperature @ 2 m height (~ 6.5 feet), meaning that the temperature during the night will always be lower at the ground level (unless some extreme situations like soil absorbing a lot of heat during a sunny day then emanating it throughout the night). That's probably why you had frost even though temp was 36.
I've had a similar situation, but temperature went down to 30 (probably slightly less @ ground level, but only for an hour or two)! The weather guy missed completely, and i found 13 wilted plants next morning (whole plant, along with the growing tip). They were planted quite deep, so i presumed the roots didn't freeze. I just left them in the ground, without pruning, and in 2-3 weeks time they actually recovered even though they looked completely dead. At the time i had another 50 that have only had their foliage slightly damaged, so i thought i'd give those 13 a go, and it worked. So i'm also with your father on this ;)
@ Dave
Good point and well explained, although i think that the length of the growing season is one of the major factors in play. For someone with short growing season, growing multiple steams can lead to plant setting a lot of fruit too late in the season (because of the energy being used on developing additional stems), without enough time for the majority of fruit to mature.
That been said, i now realize the OP bigpinks is from Ohio, so Dave has made a good point considering the climate there.
On the other hand, UK has a very different practice which i tend to follow here, with some changes to adapt to my climate - they train to a single stem and stop growth (pinch the top off) after 4-5 trusses.
I usually let mine grow to 6-8 trusses depending on variety, then pinch the top off, and when the final truss starts ripening, i pull the whole plant out and replace it with another that i've planted a bit later during the season, which is about to set fruit. It can be a bit tricky to get the timing right and it does involve more work, but last season i got better yield this way (i experimented on sungold plants, 1st was trained to two stems, and the other was treated like i said above, then pulled out and replaced). It is actually 2 plants vs 1 plant but those 2 occupy a single spot throughout the season so space-wise it does produce more. The two-stemed sungold had set a lot of flowers/fruit in early - mid september, and none of them made it since the season came to an abrupt ending in october.
Also i should point out that the total difference between those plants in the amount of fruit gained at the end of the season made sense to me, since at the time i had a lot of free time and didn't mind the extra work involved. It doesn't necessarily mean it is the way to go.
Cheers,
Djole
although i think that the length of the growing season is one of the major factors in play
I agree. And thus my original post's question and point.
There are so many variables involved in this "comparison" that it is anecdotal info only. No conclusions of any kind can be drawn.
It is 'happenstance', what has happened at this particular time to these 2 plants in these 2 containers in this particular grower's drive, in his zone given his particular weather that past couple of weeks, etc. etc. etc.
Interesting to observe but no valid methodology conclusions result.
Dave
It is strictly your choice. It is not required for any reason unless perhaps someone is trying to grow a giant for a competition and even then the potential for gain in size is primarily variety-related.
IME with the variety you usually only see such clusters with the first sets only so why not do it on a couple of clusters and leave the others and see which you prefer to do. Just keep in mind that it is determinate variety so you will be sacrificing some production.
Dave
Thanks everyone the tomatoes are starting to blossom and the ground is staying moist a lot longer with the grass clippings I put down. This is the first year of a garden in this soil so it might take a season or two, to get it in the right state for growing vegies.
You may get pretty good results since your garden has
never been a garden. I got good results the first year
I was in this house. I think since nothing much grew
there, there was a lot of nutrients available.
But the stuff was hard to dig and would get hard as a rock
when dry. I used lots of Kellog's AMEND in the garden to
loosten things up so digging was not such hard work.
I used to have to stand on the spading fork to get it though
the dirt at first. Now I can push the fork in with arm
pressure only!
Simple they need water
Totally normal experience as stated earlier. I think that if you restricted full sun exposure when you noticed this situation you handled the situation properly.
But this can re-occur. I set a few hundred plants (well hardened plants) in my farmers' market box van (total darkness) around noon so I wouldn't need to load them in the rain pending. The next day at the market the sun was bright and the tomato plants wilted. Lesson: Even a day out of sun and you need to readapt plants to it.