What's wrong with my tomatoes?

[sally fran]

Hummm... Got back yesterday from being away for a couple of weeks to find something not right with some of my tomato plants. They've been sitting on capillary matting by a southeast facing french window in an unheated room. Some of them - all five of the Ferline, a couple of Sungella and a Losetto - have sort of blistery looking rough patches on the stems, and the lower leaves have gone pale and fallen off. Here are some pics:



At first I thought maybe sun scorch but it seems to be on the side of the stems facing away from the window. I don't know how cold it got in there, but there was no heating on at all in the house while we were away. Most of the plants were okay - there are about 25 in total which were admittedly all a bit crowded together.

I have some more upstairs on a table under a velux and they are all fine.

Any advice gratefully received!

[SarzWix]

How long have they been in those pots? Might be lack of feed, combined with extreme temperature changes. Hopefully they'll recover.

[sally fran]

How long have they been in those pots? Might be lack of feed, combined with extreme temperature changes. Hopefully they'll recover.

Thanks for that - yes, they've been in those pots for at least six weeks without being fed. My worry was that they were diseased and that it would spread, but if they just need some TLC I'll get them all potted on today.

[SarzWix]

You could quarantine the affected ones to be on the safe side, but if they've been in an enclosed space, the chances of picking up diseases are smaller I would guess. The yellowing leaves indicates a lack of nutrients usually.

[sally fran]

You could quarantine the affected ones to be on the safe side

Okay - I've done that. And all potted on so I'll see how they go.

Many thanks.

[leonmc0708]

I find tom's to be particularly mopey and they get a right cob on if not re-potted regularaly into larger pots on a gradual basis.

Quite how they managed that on their own naturally is beyond me !!!

[wizzbang]

At what age/size should you start to feed tomato plants and start moving to bigger pots?
Lynne x

[rustylady]

Move to bigger pots when the roots have filled the current ones Lynne. Feed when the first flowers have "set" - i.e. you can see baby tomatoes.

[leonmc0708]

Yeah - I usually do so when some roots appear in the holes at the bottom of the pot OR when they start sulking/dropping

[wizzbang]

Thank you!
Lynne x