Tomato appearing on 5" high bush plant - surely not??

[Croila]

Hi, I'd be really grateful for some tomato advice please!

On 14 April I bought six wee "Totem" plug plants, potted them on, and have kept them in our conservatory which is very bright and gets pretty hot when the sun's out.

On 19 April they looked like this - okay, I thought, no problems.

But today they're only about 5 inches high, they started flowering about a fortnight ago, and now there's a tomato on one of them.

I grew one Totem bush tomato plant last year and it produced quite a lot of fruit, and I seem to remember the plant didn't flower till way later in the year than May.


Has anyone got any ideas why my wee plants started flowering a fortnight ago and there's a tomato on one of them already? I feel that's not right, though I don't know why, or what to do about it. What am I doing wrong?

Also, the lower leaves are going a bit yellow ... I've not fed them at all yet cause I thought it was too early. Should I be giving them tomato feed from now on, please?

Any advice gratefully appreciated!

[King Carrot]

If it was me I'd pot on into next size up pot using some proven good compost or mix and give a liquid feed of seaweed - I reckon the compost they're in could be unbalanced in some way or completely washed out.

[Croila]

Thank you KC - I think I'll do that. There's a job for this weekend, then

[teakdesk]

To my eyes there is a purple tinge to the lower leaves which I associate with cold over-night temperatures or worn-out compost (magnesium deficiency).

However, I suspect the plants are not growing due to the high day-time temperatures which will also prevent the flowers setting properly.

It is not abnormal for flowers to be on plants sown in early April but they really should have put on more green growth by now.

I would carefully remove them from their pots and remove, carefully, as much compost as you can - if the root system is small then re-pot with good compost in same size pots; if lots of roots then pot up to next size.

Do not over water. Keep warm at night and keep cooler during the day. With new compost you should not feed for a couple of weeks or so.



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[Croila]

Teakdesk, thank you ...

Yes, the lower leaves of all the plants are a bit purply, and thinking about it, yes it probably is too cold out there at night and too hot during the day.

Drat, that gives me a bit of a problem as to where to move them to! I guess it maybe doesn't help that I don't bother to close the windows in there at night - better start doing that now I reckon.

I also have a funny feeling that it was really rubbishy left-over compost I used, so if that's the case they should benefit from repotting and recomposting.

Provided I sort out the temperatures and compost, I wonder if there's hope for them to "normalise" and give a proper yield later on?

[King Carrot]

Although the high and low temperature fluctuations won't have helped, I find toms tend to take major, often unrepairable damage at around 4C so I reckon you can stop worrying too much about that.

I'd say it's deffo the compost from your comments above, If potted on with good stuff they should start to fly and a seaweed feed will do them the world of good, myself I wouldn't disturb the root ball as I think it might slow them down too much, as soon as the roots are in touch with some good stuff they should fly!

ps. bury the stem as much as you can to get roots going into the fresh stuff!

[teakdesk]

King Carrot and I are living proof that if you ask two gardeners the same question you'll get three answers!!!

I think Edinburgh has had some cold nights recently so I wouldn't rule it out.

Also, I expect from the amount of top growth that the roots could well be weak and feeble. The sooner the roots get out of old compost and into fresh (by removing old compost) the sooner nutrients will get to the plant, although I did say if there actually is a good rootball then leave it and just pot into good compost. I also think that the amount of greenery indicates it is too early to pot into a larger pot where roots will sit in damp compost for longer.

[mcsee]

Looking at them in the first photo, they don't look very well and don't seem to have got any better. If they were mine, I'd bin them and start again. But that's just me. :-)

[Nik]

Last year a freind gave me a tom plant in a 3in pot that was about as high as yours. It also had a little tomato on and it grew to a decent size, went red and after that it was clearly exhausted and didn't do much more. I didn't repot it, we just kept it on the windowsill because it looked so funny.

[gojiberry]

Tomato plants should be planted into their final position when the first flowers appear. Yours have definitely exhausted the nutrients in that size pot. I would just pot on into final growing place.

Ian

[King Carrot]

King Carrot and I are living proof that if you ask two gardeners the same question you'll get three answers!!!

had to add some extra characters to do this!

[rustylady]

If you want to keep the plant, then cut off the baby tomato and repot into some decent compost in the same size pot. It's fruiting early because it is desperate to reproduce cos it's not in a happy place at the moment. You may be able to save the plant if you treat it well.

[Potstubsdustbins]

As everyone else has said repot into decent compost and when you do start to feed use something high in nitrogen for your first couple of feeds this will boost the green growth.

Colin

[mcsee]

As everyone else has said repot into decent compost and when you do start to feed use something high in nitrogen for your first couple of feeds this will boost the green growth.

Colin

High Nitrogen isn't the answer, a dose of Potash would do it more good at the moment. Yes, take the flowers and any laterals off and re-pot it.

[Potstubsdustbins]

Mcsee we must agree to disagree the plant needs to grow before thinking about fruit therefore I would recommend nitrogen at first then when it as put some size on and is strong enough to carry fruit change to high potash.

But as they say you pays your money you takes your choice.

Colin