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Tomato leaves
Lily Pilly
Posts: 3,845
in Fruit & veg
my tomatoes (Nova and Golden Showers and one I lost the label of!) are looking pretty poorly they are yellowish and weak looking. Should I take the sick leaves off? There is fruit but with this weather heaven knows if they will ever colour
What to do?
Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
A A Milne
A A Milne
0
Posts
I think yellow leaves means it needs more nutritions.
I pick off the yellow leaves or ones with black edges. As long as you aren't over watering then I suggest using tomato feed to add nutrition and increase your crop especially if they are already fruiting.
LP is up here in Scotland, but a bit further south than me Lantana.
Are they outside LP? What are they planted in? What's ventilation like if they're under cover?
I don't feed very often - twice usually. They definitely benefit from being treated mean - I learnt that from Italophile a couple of years ago. .
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
thanks everyone. The plants are in the greenhouse in a self watering system bought a few years ago I am wondering if the capillary matting is not feeding up and I maybe should have replaced it. Also I am probably fussing them a bit more than I should
will try Fairy s treat mean approach!
A A Milne
Hi all
I have a cut off water bottle I insert into the compost when final potting up see photo. It does help to get the water down to the roots and of course I can keep an eye on how much is given.
Over water or under does tend to lead to problems with blossom end rot (blackened bottom of Tom) which is a sign of infrequent watering.
I feed my toms now twice a week with comfrey tea, however the stench from it is really bad but the reward from the plants in volume is brilliant.
If you don't use comfrey get a plant and you will never have to buy tomatoe, cucumber or chilli feed ever again for your greenhouse fruit
picture of comfrey plant
good luck and happy gardening
Lantana - from what I can remember Italophile saying, it's not how much you water or don't water, it's keeping a consistent regime. If you start them off by only watering when they get a bit limp, that's what you continue to do. In a greenhouse or similar, and especially if in pots, plants will dry out quicker, so watering more often will be necessary. Tomatoes are annual, so they want to flower and set seed to reproduce. By making them slightly stressed, they will try to get to the flowering stage quicker. Make them too comfy and they just grow.
Ventilation is a big factor too - especially in those plastic growhouses, because the temperatures fluctuate far more than in a proper greenhouse. I remove quite a lot of lower foliage to allow air round the plants, and I continue to remove some as the fruits develop and ripen.
With the feeding regime, feed for the first time when the first truss is set - normal practice. After that, too much feeding is counter productive, because once the fruit is there, the growing medium is virtually irrelevant. One more feed is plenty, more than that is just a waste. The fruit will ripen without any of it. As anyone who's brought a few green toms into the house to ripen knows, they do it by themselves.
I think that's the gist of it - I expect Italophile will look in and correct me!
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...