Tomato growing diary 2016

[solanaceae]

Think it's too early to start thinking about feeding them, they are growing in MPC and not purely peat, besides I have some much smaller seedlings and they are showing the same wrinkled effects. I always make sure to avoid getting the foilage wet when I water. The mystery goes on.... maybe I've unwittingly concocted and harbouring a never before discovered tomato virus!

[veggiechicken]

What variety are they? Are they all the same?

[solanaceae]

Some that I've grown from seed collected from my own toms last year and F1s from various sellers, all show the same symptoms.

[Scoot]

Here's my tomato plants. Few of them are still quite small.

[Lisasbolt]

Looking good guys, i do not share a photo of mine, crammed in and suffering now, but have had a feed and will get planted out this next week, well the first ones will.

[Potstubsdustbins]

Well I have finally kicked off today. 10 Sungold, 8 Tumbler and 8 Red Zebra sown and on the window sill.

[Scarlet]

That reminds me, I should start some more

[poly]

Not as far as I'm aware.

Funny thing is they were doing fine in the same compost for weeks, then 2 weeks ago they all suddenly start to go nuts, so that makes me think it can't be the compost doing this. If it was the compost then I'd have thought it would not have been able to grow healthily to the stage they did.

Having said that, when you search 2, 4-D herbicide on google it does display symptoms worryingly similar.

Poor tomato plants.

They do look healthy up to the gone bananas growing tip. Occasionally I've had some similar looking shoots on tomato plants in the summer, I've not been sure whether it has been a feeding issue or if conditions have been too hot/cold/dry. Wasn't there a post further back queering it being a moisture issue from being under lights?

On the plants I've grown the growing tip just doesn't do much and any leaves that do form are stunted and often curled under. But if I let a side shoot develop from lower down it will grow healthily and can be trained to take over as the leader shoot.

[TrixC]

Ok, went a bit mad on tomatoes due to excitement of additional allotment space:

Alaskan Fancy*
Artisan Bumble bee
Black Sea Man
Cherry Roma
Costoluto Fiorentino
Ethel Watkins
Fiaschetto*
Gold Medal
Green Sausage
Ildi
Maskotka
Matina
Merveilles des Marches
Moonglow*
Opalka*
Orange Banana*
Red Alert
Rose de Berne
Sungold
Sweet Million
Tigerella
Tondo Liscio
Pantano Romanesco*
Ponsonby Red*
Paul Robeson
Virginia Sweets*

All open pollinated varieties except Sungold, Sweet Million and Bumble bee. * are varieties I'm growing for the first time this year, the others are tried and tested.

[solanaceae]

They do look healthy up to the gone bananas growing tip. Occasionally I've had some similar looking shoots on tomato plants in the summer, I've not been sure whether it has been a feeding issue or if conditions have been too hot/cold/dry. Wasn't there a post further back queering it being a moisture issue from being under lights?

On the plants I've grown the growing tip just doesn't do much and any leaves that do form are stunted and often curled under. But if I let a side shoot develop from lower down it will grow healthily and can be trained to take over as the leader shoot.

I was hoping it was a moisture /dryness issue but I've reduced the temp to the teens and even gone through the bother of buying a humidifier, but only seen ever so slight improvement (leaves becoming more spread out but still wrinkled and stunted). Makes me think it mAybe isn't a humidity issue.

Will keep growing them and see if it can sort itself out now I'm sending them for visits to the garden. I would have chucked em by now if it wasn't for the fact a great expense was involved (many are the blight resistant f1 types ) fingers crossed.

[Scoot]

Any ideas why some of my tomato plants are growing well, whilst others are still tiny?

[Lisasbolt]

Scoot it can just be the varieties grow differently, or came up at different time, they normally sort themselves out. Give them time and they will soon take off.

[poly]

All open pollinated varieties except Sungold, Sweet Million and Bumble bee.

Nice list Trixc, lots of tastes, colours and shapes
Artisan Bumble Bee varieties are all open pollinated, it's just they are mixed seeds in the packet. You should end up with Purple Bumble Bee, Pink Bumble Bee and the yellow I think is called Golden Bumble Bee. But whether the yellow one is the same as Sunrise Bumble Bee I'm not sure.

I'm growing Sunrise bumble Bee this year, perhaps we can compare notes later on?

[poly]

I was hoping it was a moisture /dryness issue but I've reduced the temp to the teens and even gone through the bother of buying a humidifier, but only seen ever so slight improvement (leaves becoming more spread out but still wrinkled and stunted). Makes me think it mAybe isn't a humidity issue.

Will keep growing them and see if it can sort itself out now I'm sending them for visits to the garden. I would have chucked em by now if it wasn't for the fact a great expense was involved (many are the blight resistant f1 types ) fingers crossed.

Hope they pick up for you very soon. I'm just about to sow some blight resistant ones, Crimson Crush and Mountain Magic.

[Scoot]

Scoot it can just be the varieties grow differently, or came up at different time, they normally sort themselves out. Give them time and they will soon take off.

Hopefully Lisa, it's probably me just being impatient but it just seems to be taking them ages to get going (some of them).