Tomato Troubles

[streamline22]

This Year Was My First Attempt At Growing Tomatoes From Seed. They Were Free With Grow Your Own Magazine. They Have Grown Well Up To Now, But Have Developed Brown Spots On The Leaves And Now They Have Shrivled Up And The Plants Look As If They Are Dying. They Have Started To Flower As Well. Any Suggestions. I Think Maybe One Of The Problems May Be Compost I Had Left From Last Maybe. Help!!!!

[gcroft]

tomatoes

if your using compost from last year it may be drained of nutrients, buy some tomato feed from GC or wilki's and give them a good liquid feed (repeat every week to two weeks) also toms require alot of water so keep them well watered, my greenhouse toms are watered twice a day and they still dry out a bit on the hotest days. They also root easily so if you have one healthy plant you could try butchering it into cuttings ( as big as possible) and place them in healthy new compost and keep moist they root really quick but keep the slightly shaded for a few days and moist.

In future as a general rule compost sold as growbags / general purpose compost will only feed your plants for about 4 good growing weeks then you need to think about feeding them..

Hope this helps and good luck

[lyndap]

If you need to feed your toms at the 4week stage, do you use tom feed or something else. I've never fed until first flowers formed before, but used different compost this year to pot on to 3in pots, and I think they going to need early feed!

[Alice]

Hello Streamline, it sounds to me as if your tomatoes have been scorched by the sun. Don't want to be too pessimistic but if that's the case I don't think there is anything you can do to retrieve the situation.

Hello Lyndap, at this stage you should feed your tomatoes with Phostrogen or similar. Once they have flowered and fruit starts to form switch the feed to tomatoe fertilizer (Tomorite) Hope you get a great crop.

[lyndap]

Thanks for that Alice. Will buy some and get feeding this week.

[Does the Cooking]

I have some trusses on my toms - should I give them some feed?

[Alice]

Yes, I would start feeding with tomorite.

[Lou-lou]

Whats a truss?

This is probably a very thick question, but what is a truss on a tomato plant?
Is it the first branches?

If so , if i am growing cordon tomato plants, its right to pinch out the branches after about 1 inch?

What does it mean that the truss has set?

Sounds very daft but the books don't explain.

Louise

[valmarg]

A truss on a tomato plant is awkward to explain, but when you go into the supermarket and you see the 'vine ripened tomatoes' in 'bunches' - these are trusses. It is the bunch of tomatoes you get on a flower stem. Hope that makes a bit of sense!!

On cordon tomatoes you pinch out the side shoots. I'm not very experienced on this, and would bow to superior knowledge

What it means 'that a truss has set' is, that the flowers have dropped off and you have a truss (bunch) of baby tomatoes. All they need to do is grow and ripen.

Hope this is of some help

valmarg

[Lou-lou]

Thanks!
Its alot clearer now.

Louise