16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

LeslieSison wrote: > Hi, I went to Home Depot yesterday and bought a tomato tree that is about 2 feet tall already. There were flowers blooming and small buds of fruit that's coming out.

I transplanted many 2 feet plants before. Actually ALL my transplants are 1 ý - 2 ft. high. Most of the times with flowers and small fruits 1âÂÂâÂÂ+. And always everything was⦠ok.

> We have decided to transplant it to a bigger box yesterday.

How BIG is the box ? What tomato variety did you buy ?

> And today it is wilting.

Wilting can have A FEW causes.

One - as others said - is the transplanting shock. Just provide shade, especially between 12-4 pm, and in 3-4 days hopefully everything will be ok.

Make sure you water thoroughly, I mean SOAKING. Every other day. Until water comes at the bottom of the box. When itâÂÂs 90â F outside, soil in boxes dries very, VERY fast. Btw, what soil did you use ?

Another cause could be a disease. I donâÂÂt think itâÂÂs the case, but to be sure fungicide ASAP. This year I decided to use the organic Copper Fungicide (Bonide) and my plants look very nice and healthy. Until now, no problems whatsoever - knock on wood.

Apply the fungicide once a week, better after a rain - never before - so check the weather forecast. Apply the fungicide on the top AND under the leaves. I use SoloâÂÂs ý gl. sprayer, which has a multi-directional nozzle for spraying from all positions.

LeslieSison wrote: > â¦i also see some insects on the leavesâ¦

2-3 days after you applied the fungice, use some organic Garden Dust (Safer) [OMRI-listed] against insects. Ortho insect killer is NOT organic, and I wouldnâÂÂt recommend it to you.

Also, cut the dry (lower) leaves. Make sure to mulch the soil in the box, to avoid splashing rain water on the leaves, which can lead to diseases.

Leslie, can we see some pictures ?

How WilberâÂÂs âÂÂ18 branchesâ technique worked for you ?

Oh Daniel,

That was a good one. Thanks for the link! Ha ha!

I wouldn't want tomatoes that tall, or ones that produced THAT MUCH fruit (LOL).

Linda

I feel like here in Philly we have had relatively good tomato weather - intermittent heavy rains, not too hot. I did not yet get the horrible mid-summer blossom drop that usually stalls all tomatoes.

Yet my t'maters are not great, I can only chalk it up to culture and genetics trying to figure out what went wrong with some plants.

I live just North of Columbus, OH. Out of 80 tomato plants, I probably have around 30 that have survived. Way too much rain! I pretty much had this problem last year so I planted tomatoes in two different locations and about 10 in large containers. I will have plenty to can, I think. It is just a shame to see beautiful tomato plants die. I raise them from seed and they are really, really nice when I put them in the ground.
I think my garden needs about (5) semi loads of top soil to raise it up about 12 to 18 inches.

I just wanted to note that if it is a systemic disease it wouldn't be Root Knot nematodes or Fusarium, since both of those are not a problem in areas where the ground freezes deeply each winter as it does in CO. unless of course there's a heavy snow cover which insulates the ground temps

I'd possibly vote for Verticillium, with most of the time leaves wilting on just one side of a plant and can and does overwinter.

Carolyn

FWIW, here's the feedback from my friend on his gardening methods.

My gardens are raised planting beds, amended soil every year, tomatoes never planted in the same bed 2 years in a row. Plants are pretty close together, about 24â apart. This is the only plant that is having issues. All other plants are 100% healthy, planted the same way, and have an identical, automated watering schedule.

I donâÂÂt think itâÂÂs an issue of a damaged stem. That happened as I was planting when I pinched off the lowest branches and the plant has grown just fine for weeks. The brown spots on the stem now go down to the ground. The whole plant has a yellow-grey hue now, and itâÂÂs basically a goner.

Could be bacterial canker. DId you buy the plants or start from seed? Nothing much to do about that except pull the plant if it's bad but I'd say if fruit isn't affected just follow recommendations in my earlier post.

If it's late blight you'd be seeing it on the stems and the plants would be dead within days.

Heavy mulch is good - from the little I can see in the last pix, the clippings look pretty thin.

Give us an update next week.

In my Toronto, Ontario garden, I've definitely got a blight situation. My leaf edges started going dark a few weeks ago. I picked off affected stems, but the spread rate is accelerating and entire stems are going black/brown overnight. I wondered if it was a bacterial issue, but it's looking exactly like blight in its advanced stages now. Heartbreaking since I had so many green tomatoes on the the vine! I hope your garden is faring better, Kpn.Kardif.

According to a Google image search, that last picture is Black Krim. That exact photo is on various seed selling websites.

gin-gin,

you are right. I got it from the internet, As seen, there are 4 different shape and size of fruit in just one cluster.

I just wanted to show that fruits shape, size, color can be different. Normal BK has roundish fruits, not lobbed, not boat shape. So really, short of a DNA test one cannot say if this is CP, BK, Black from Tula, so forth.

I just take it as a guessing fun game here. It is not a matter of life and death.

I have to say they are a very stunning color this morning, I've never seen anything quite like it. I just wish they were a tiny bit larger though. They are now deep purple throughout except for a touch of green on the bottom. All of them still feel a bit firm though. The problem is that I can't determine whether or not to pick them and allow them to ripen indoors. For red tomatoes I usually pick them when they start to blush to avoid splitting, pests, etc.

From what I understand the flavor of these are better if you let them fully ripen on the vine... so the bottom of the tomato (which doesn't get direct sunlight) should be red like a ripe tomato.

Any areas which get direct sunlight will turn indigo.

I am guessing since they are smaller in size you are lest likely to have splitting etc.

My CSA farmer is growing Indigo rose and his is not cracking (but they are on the smaller side as well). He let me try one (usually I'd have to wait till they came in my share), they were good... nice flavor. I am thinking about growing an indigo variety next year. Can post an update on how the indigo apple was?

As a follow up to my original post. My original question was "has anyone ever germinated this variety ( Elfin) and what did they experience and what were their results. I was only asking for "experiences".

To answer your question directly, no, I've never grown it but I thought it might be helpful to give a bit of background information about it. ( smile)

Carolyn

OMG, digdirt, LOL. Right. I am off to go throw away all my maters then. Then I will never have BER ever.

My plants are okay, but the bucket that my 6 foot yellow pear is in is definitely a solid block of roots. However, I just counted 100 tomatoes on Heather (that's the plant's name lol) so I guess it ain't dying anytime soon. I thought that 5 gallon buckets would be overkill but now I realize why people say it's a bare minimum.

BER susceptibility is a known fact. Amongst those some are more prone to it than others. What causes it an how different varieties are affected, are different issues. we are not concern with them in this thread. It is the same/similar case about certain disease resistance that can affect our choices.

As gardeners, we try to maximize our returns and nobody likes to pitch rotted tomatoes. Just going by the laws of probability and statistics we can minimize our losses, by simply avoiding the varieties that have a higher probability of developing BER. Luckily there are many many choices out there and one is not limited in choice to a known limited varieties . AND THAT IS WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT.
Ultimately at the end of the day one can decide for him/her self.
Peace, brothers and sisters !

What varieties are you growing ?
What kind of temperature, direct sun you are getting.

I agree, you cannot blame winter in the middle of summer.

Finally if you can post a picture might help you to get better help.

The variety you're growing can make a huge difference. Determinate tomatoes only grow for a certain amount of time and then stop.

You might want to stick to indeterminate hybrid tomatoes. Early girl tomatoes are good options for those who live in areas with short growing seasons. You might want to check with staff at nurseries next season about what they recommend for your area.

For example, I've made the mistake of growing heirlooms in the past because the pictures are "different" and "cool looking." What I didn't realize is that they're much more fussy than your traditional hybrids.

You ought to head over to the Harvest Forum where they can best advise you on the safest method for canning the green ones.
Edie

I bather that OP wants to use them fresh.

Brett,

Interesting comment about counter-ripened Sungolds!

Last year I bought a Sungold that turned out to be an imposter, so a friend gave me a container of them to try. I let them ripen for several days and was disappointed in the taste.

This year I have my own Sungold plant and the tomatoes taste pretty good!

Linda

I had the same experience that Brett had with sungolds. Since reading on this site about picking at color break vs ripening on the vine, I've started picking large beefsteak varieties when they're 1/3 to 1/2 ripe, and I would agree that I can't see much difference in flavor between ripening on the counter vs ripening on the vine. But I tried doing the same with sungolds to avoid having them split, and there was a big difference in taste. Even sungolds that were close to fully ripe never achieved the same sweetness as fully vine-ripened sungolds. I haven't experimented with other cherry varieties, so I don't know if this behavior is unique to sungolds.

Thanks for all the interesting comments. Yes, I have been using a liquid fert (which includes micros) at a low "maintenance" concentration with every watering, for my small containers with very short determinates. And yes after the very first blossoms did not go anywhere, got a cheap battery-toothbrush, and since then almost all have set.

Still learning, but at least the first couple of tomatoes are now starting to blush red...

IMO, not that there isn't any difference between det and indet tomatoes There is not much difference between tomatoes and pepper either. Any fertilizer that is suitable for tomatoes is also good for peppers, eggplants cucurbita, etc.

There is a new theory that almost all garden plants use NPK at 3-1-2 ratio. When all those elements are present in the medium, the plants will choose and pick what they need, provided the soil chemistry is right and balanced. In other words if we give the plant a fertilizer, in 1-1-1 ratio ( like 12-12-12) the plants are not going to use them in that order. That is why in most established gardens there is a surplus of P and K.

This post was edited by seysonn on Thu, Jul 24, 14 at 16:45

Makes a lot of sense, thank you so much I really appreciate it! I'll definitely focus on those things.

Looks like EB (earlyblight) too me, Had the same problem but mine our in the ground, I would spray with a fungicide.