When I left for a three week camping vacation earlier this month, I arranged for a fantastic gardening friend to care for my vegetable patch while I was away. Despite her care, though, I came home to a few troubles which I am quickly addressing — particularly with my beloved tomatoes. How is your garden growing… are you noticing any of these issues?
Tomato season hasn't fully set on for me in Massachusetts, but the early arrivals of Sungold tomatoes were almost universally split (although not as beautifully as the example above, from the Phantom Rickshaw).
The culprit for this was easy — right before we left we installed a brand new irrigation system, and then the morning that we left the power went out briefly. Who knew that the new timer didn't have a memory and would need to be reset? So in our first days of travel, our tomatoes were not being watered consistently (or at all). Noticing the problem, my garden-helping friend re-programmed the water sprinkler, but not before we suffered a batch of baby tomatoes that matured into split tomatoes. Split tomatoes generally come from inconsistent watering. They are growing inconsistently (due to irregular watering), and they simply split the skin when the water comes back. Fix the watering cycle and you will likely fix the tomatoes.
Do you have a batch of split tomatoes? Don't throw them away… throw them in a pot! They make lovely sauce with the use of a Passata Maker
I also noticed a some yellowing leaves on my plants, which I immediately panicked over. If you grow tomatoes, you must educate yourself about Late Blight. Late Blight threatens to wipe out organic tomato crops completely, and since it is is highly contagious, it will take a community of growers (yes, even those of you who just grow a few in your back yards are included) to control it.
Late Blight has threatened tomato crops throughout the country for the last few years. Here in Massachusetts, a USDA disaster was declared in 2009 for the tomato crop when it was all but wiped out from blight. Keep an eye on your crops and get to know the warning signs… see them here.
I don't have Late Blight — what I have is plants that have grown like healthy weeds during my three week journey, and subsequently some of the leaves on the inner sections of the plants are wilting, yellowing and dying from lack of light and air. A little leaf thinning (but not too much) should solve the problem. If your plants are doing the same, there is nothing harmful about thinning out the leaves (just pinch them off at the stem) to help the plant maintain itself.
What tomato problems are you experiencing? Or maybe you have a bumper crop? I would be happy to offer some advice — or we can collectively help each other out — in the comments.
(Image: Shutterstock)
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I bought a tomato plant (heirloom) from my local nursery and it grew like a weed (probably 5 or 6 feet in one month) and it flowered, so we were hopeful... But then it never produced fruit. It was so frustrating and ugly that we just got rid of it this past weekend. I assume it was just bad genetics since my other tomato plant (cherry tomatoes) grew and fruited fine (though the tomatoes did split, which I now know is my fault... oops).
As for the passata maker, I made this pasta sauce with whole cherry tomatoes and it was delicious. No need to peel or seed anything, *and* I didn't have to buy a $50 kitchen gadget that I have no room for!
Our heirloom tomatoes are slow to turn in the brutal heat we're having in the Midwest this year. My husband's grandpa always told us that blossoms won't set above 95 degrees, and I suspect he was right. The plants seem to remain in suspended animation until we get a cooler day or night, and only then will they start setting new fruit or ripening the existing fruit. It's frustrating, but we're still pulling in enough to do some small-batch canning!
I have a few roma tomato plants that have brown areas on the bottom of the fruit. My other tomato varieties are doing really well, it's just the romas that are having this issue. Any ideas?
Honestly, my advice?? Give the garden a good weeding, pull of brown leaves and uproot dead/dying plants, and give in to the chaos: http://citytradecountrylove.blogspot.com/2012/07/when-dust-settles-and-you-dare-to-peek.html
the biggest problem with our tomato plants is a persistent raccoon... fun.
One issue I seem to always encounter is blossom end rot - when tomatoes grow fine, except the bottom turns brown and leathery, and eventually rots. The answer to blossom end rot is calcium - I will crush up egg or clam shells and amend my soil with it to fix it, but usually not before I have lost a few otherwise lovely tomatoes to it.
So far my heirloom Black Russian tomato plant has produced nothing. For the last month it would flower, but then they would all drop off. I've finally got one baby tomato on that thing, hopefully more to come. Meanwhile my yellow grape tomato plant one row over is absolutely thriving. It's completely taken over it's corner, and gives me a handful of fruit every other day. Methinks the one plant likes the heat while the other just plain doesn't.
The yellow tomato plant does the same thing, sometimes small interior branches (without fruit) will yellow and fall off, maybe 2-3 per week. Glad this is normal.
I have had trouble with leaf-miners. They have really done some damage this year.
In my hot humid area, blossom drop (from heat) and early blight are always a problem, but this year it's been especially bad because the heat came so early. To add to that, I have tomato pinworms. Not a good year for tomatoes in my garden--they are just not thriving.
Hornworms. I once had a family of hornworms eat my entire tomato plant, tomatoes and all in one night. And those f**rs are massive and kinda scary looking. Now every caterpillar I see I freak out about :).
I am getting little black spots on some of mine. Anyone know what that could be? I also have lots of split ones, but I just cut those up anyway and throw them in a salad.
@JESS13 Where in the country are you located? Im in Massachusetts and my 3 Russian Blacks are doing fine. We've been harvesting 3-4 tomatoes each week.
@FAIRYBEKK My father had hornworms on his tomato plants last year and one of them had been infected by a braconid parasitic wasp. Google it, it's freaky!
I echo the same of tomatoes that are just stagnant though I'm keeping the hope alive. This is my first year using a raised bed so I'm constantly wondering... "is there too much drainage" or "is there not enough drainage" and "did I make the right soil choice"?? I'm still uncertain if it's my garden or the weather that's the cause.
From a roma tomato, a grape tomato, a cucumber and TWELVE pepper plants I have only had about 10 tomatoes that were edible. It makes me beyond sad.
I live in Eastern Massachusetts. Our CSA has told us that there is still some Late Blight appearing this summer in our area. There are some varieties of tomato that are late Blight resistant - Defiant and Magic Mountain are two. That won't help anyone affected this year, but next year look for those, if you are concerned.
So far, our own plants have been great and we've had quite a few tomatoes, but the trauma of 2009 lingers on. Everyone around here is still so anxious about their tomatoes.
@mayoo I had the same problem with my romas and after some research it seems the culprit is bottom rot, which Romas are particularly susceptible. It's usually from a calcium deficiency but research says it's more because of inconsistent watering making the plants unable to take up calcium (so it doesn't seem to help much to add a calcium supplement or ground up eggshells, although some people think this works). I simply removed all the affected crop and tossed out, then made sure to water regularly. The later crops seem to be doing well enough now, if you catch it in time it doesn't seem to affect the plant for the entire growing season.
My tomatoes are slowly maturing, the romas are starting to give me a few ripe smaller ones, oddly enough only the plant that is stunted and leaves turning a weird dry brownish on the edges are producing ripe fruit while the big healthy plant has an abundance of green tomatoes that haven't ripened (yet!).
My sungold tomatoes are giving me a solid handful a day, and in a few weeks I will be inundated given the state of the unripe fruit on the plant. My burbank tomatoes for slicing are producing a few medium size fruits but nothing has ripened yet. Being patient is hard, this is my first time growing out in the west and it seems things happen a bit later here than most places, maybe due to the heat and dryness?
I'm not sure that crushed up egg shells are really going to do the trick - they break down very slowly and I can't imagine they'll add the calcium needed before the rot sets in. There are commercially available powders that seem like they'd be more effective. We've added some to our garden and so far (still early) no rot this season.
We do have split tomatoes though. From what I've read it's not so much inconsistent watering as responding to a deluge - we were very consistent in watering but then we got a couple of super heavy rains right at the time that the tomatoes were getting big. They apparently try to suck up all that water in to the plant, and that's what causes it to split especially if they're not accustomed to all that water.
@jess13, blossom drop on tomatoes or related plants (eggplant, peppers) is due to excessive heat or excessive cold. Grape tomatoes are far less fussy about temperature than the Russian blacks. Where I live I get blossom drop because the temperature drops drastically at night. When temps are over 90 for consecutive days, however, tomatoes in blossom appreciate tenting with shade cloth, jury-rigged landscape fabric, or even a repurposed umbrella.
My province isexperiencing a high amount of fluctuating heat, heavy winds, tornadoes and thunderstorms on a regular basis. My tomato plant is turning yellow, but it's not from blight and I make sure it's not over watered or underwatered. I think the roller coaster weather is killing my plant which was doing so well last week. My smaller plants which sit higher than my large plant are doing great.
I had 3 tomato plants until last weekend. The only one that produced fruit was a cherry but I would get maybe 4-5 a week at most when it was actively producing. I had an heirloom Black Prince that produced a grand total of two tomatoes and a roma that never produced anything. The cherry stopped producing near the middle of July when temps soared over 100 and the rain we were getting in the spring completely stopped (I'm in Dallas). I finally just pulled all of them because they were taking a beating from the heat and I was getting fed up with watering plants that weren't producing a thing. I never had any issue with diseases or pests other than some slugs briefly early in the season due to the large amount of rain we were briefly getting.
I'm going to try some fall tomatoes (Anna Russian and another variety of cherry) but I'm going to plant them in containers rather than the raised bed I had the others. I'm considering moving the raised bed to another location because it is in a location that I think gave my garden too much direct sunlight and that really did a number on all of my vegetables. They seemed to go through a wilt/perk up cycle on a near daily basis.
I had a tomato plant that got a woody stem only about a month after planting it. After it produced two tomatoes, it looked lost. Then, I chopped off the main stalk and it's exploded ever since. I'm going to need to add new stakes because it's outgrown it's cage.
I'm experiencing Blossom End Rot for the first time this year. Trying a product called Rot Stop to fix it in the short term, will have to do soil testing before getting the beds ready for planting next year.
My cherry tom plants from the local farm are producing ok this year. I also am in Eastern Mass & my CSA reported late blight. Ugh. Poor Drumlin Farm- they hardly had any tomatoes in 2009 & have already pulled lots of their plants for this year in order to save what they can.
I check my plants almost every day for blight & so far so good, but I am still nervous, especially with this rain we've been getting the last few weeks. My volunteer plants have lots of green tomatoes on them, but are nowhere near ripening. Since they just sprang up from the compost we spread, I have no idea of the varieties growing. If they never turn red, at least I can make pickled green tomatoes :) I seriously had at least 15 plants volunteer in the garden this year. Crazy!
good to know about the splits, our brandywine plant is getting split tomatoes but i will confess we don't do the watering very consistently outside of "making sure we do it twice a day since it's so hot out."
we have one red cherry plant that is completely a mess though (we have four tomato varieties growing in four pots). we thought it was overwatering at first, even though we didn't water it any differently than the other four; then underwater, but again, it made no sense. we lost a lot of the leaves to yellow, but hilariously, it's the ONLY plant that has produced a large yield right now. the main branches are starting to separate from the main...stump (?), so i tied them up to the stump with twist ties to keep them upright. we're starting to think our stakes are to blame, since it didn't get a change to grow UP and instead spread out. but for now, we're just hoping it continues to produce!
A lot of my tomato plants are getting wilty and yellowed -- I thought maybe they were overwatered, but that doesn't seem to be the issue. I put some fish fertilizer on the beds a few days ago, so hopefully that will help. My grape tomatoes are also turning bright red when they are still only as big as my pinky nail...no idea what is happening there! Any ideas?
We had a bit of bacterial speck early, but judicious trimming and once-a-week use of OxiDate seems to have kept it at bay thus far, knock wood. We haven't pulled in anything except a handful of Romas, but we're near Pittsburgh, our plants went in a little late, and it's been hot and dry, so I'm not surprised. They've put out some significant growth in the last week or so, and expect we'll start to harvest some fruit next week. Our squash plants are predictably going bananas, though...our neighbors are going to stop answering their doors soon.
I had the greatest tomato harvest, until my friend whom I asked to take care of them while on vacation, didn't water them. I came back to them dried and brown and crisp, with no life left. it was highly disappointing.
I have a problem this year I never encountered before - My cherry tomatoes are plentiful but are dropping to the ground before they are fully ripe. Why are they falling off the plants? Wish I knew...
We have an uninvited fury guest that takes bites out of all the tomatoes even the green ones. If I can enjoy just one, I would be a happy camper. Do I cross the ethical vegetarian line and take action with my fury friend to feed my family? I'm also wondering why I am irrigating for these creature...it settled, I am taking action to preserve my tomatoes for my family.
I love this photo. Heirloom tomatoes are relatively unknown in the UK so I plan to grow these next year.