All of my babies are dying - advice please

[JBFUK]

Hi all,

This is my first time on the forum so I hope it's not bad etiquette to jump straight in with a cry for help.

As a bit of background I'm a new gardener. The house we moved in to last year has a greenhouse and I have had space to build a raised vegetable plot so I'm very keen on growing some of my own produce.

The season started well - starting all of my tomatoes and peppers from seed indoors and repotting / moving them out to the greenhouse once they got a bit larger. It's been downhill from there.

At first the larger tomato plants lower leaves started to go yellow. I thought it could be MG or other nutrient deficiency so re-potted using a mixture of tomatorite growbag compost, John innes #3 and perlite. The leaves did not recover and began to wilt more so I eventually removed them.

I'm finding that the plants are still suffering with some of the lower leaves beginning to wilt. Also some browinsh patches are beginning to appear on the upper leaves. Other plants in the greenhouse (peppers and aubergine) are starting to look a little sad with either brown spots on the leaves or yellowing towards the bottom of the plants. Growth appears to be somewhat stunted too. I had some morning glory which I had started in the house - since I moved them out to the greenhouse prior to hardening off they have started to go yellow the leaves now have holes appearing

I have a couple of pepper plants outside and they are doing even worse - there has been almost no growth for weeks and leaves are yellowing and browning around the edges. In addition I've found that some little impatients which i'd recently planted out seem to be suffering from stunted growth and are browing around the edges of the leaves - they look very sad.

The only things that are growing well are my onions and leeks; everything else just seems to want to wither and die.

As you can imagine it's very distressing to see all of my babies slowly dying. Having scoured the internet to try to identify what's going on my initial thoughts are some kind of fungal or bacterial infection. I'm thinking of giving everything a light spray with Bordeaux mix to see if that might help but thought I should ask for advice from some experienced folks here before going ahead.

Here are some photos:

Disease Photos by JBFUK | Photobucket


Any advice will be greatly appreciated.


Justin.

[sparrow100]

When did you put them in the greenhouse? It looks like they are being scorched by the sun. This is the first year I've had a greenhouse and I was really surprised at how much heat they keep. My first lot of toms went crispy before I moved them lower down and under a little buit of shade from the trays above.

[muddled]

Hell Justin,
Welcome to the vine.

It's not bad form at all to jump right in and you've included pictures as well which is perfect.

Whereabous are you?
Uk I'm assuming (although there are lots of people on here from other places)
I'm south in London and I would definitely say it's too cold at night for peppers to be outside even here, so I'd have those babies back inside quicksmart and they might well perk up in a few days.

We have some real tomato experts in here who will no doubt help you with them as soon as they come in... It's a very busy forum, you'll not be waiting long

Good to 'meet' you!

sorry sparrow, didn't see you there...I must have cross posted

[JBFUK]

I've had them in the greenhouse for about 6 weeks - since they were a 4-5 inches tall. It does get quite warm in there but the greenhouse itself is quite well shaded from direct sun by an overgrown tree - it only gets direct sunlight for a few hours each morning and evening. On a warm sunny day it gets to around 25-26'c at the moment (I do have the hydraulic openers to try and keep air moving when it's warm). It gets a little humid (when I go down there in the morning the inside is covered in condensation). To try and help with this I have been leaving the louvre shutters open and door slightly ajar during the daytime.

Last year I had some tomatoes and peppers in there and they seemed to cope ok even during the height of summer.

Actually thinking about it the first thing I had in there this year was a cucumber - it was growing rampantly then after a week or two the leaves started going yellow, shrivelled up and it died.

At the begging of spring before I put anything out there I washed down the inside of the greenhouse with ***** fluid and let off a sulphur bomb.

[WendyC]

I don't think your problems are all down to one cause. It's very disheartening but nothing looks too bad. I have found this season a bit of a slow starter, mainly I think due to the cold weather. Without knowing your location I can't say whether this is one factor. How much sun does the greenhouse get? Is the glass clean and did you clean it with a sulphur candle or disinfectant before starting to use? All sorts of nasties can lurk. Have you monitored the overnight temperature tomatoes, peppers and aubergines need about 10 degrees to grow without a check. Where are your busy lizzies planted, they just look cold!
Some of the white patches look like leaf miner damage, just pick them off. I like to use a seaweed feed to give plants a boost, widely available and seems to give plants a bit of a boost.

[Guest]

Hi and welcome to the vine

You look like you are doing well, unfortunately it is a delicate time of year to know what to do for the best and it should be the in/out dance at best for many plants . Like most you have probably been lulled by the few sunny days we have had, however your plants haven't. Get them in undercover and hopefully they will pick back up. Don't expect too much too soon as they have been shocked. In regards to some of the tom leaves it looks like you had some beasties but nothing to worry about

Good luck

[JBFUK]

Thanks for the welcome. I'm in Kent so very similar climate to London. You might be right about it being too cold for the peppers outside - I had too much in the greenhouse so thought I'd try putting a few out early. I guess that will be a lesson learned.

What is more distressing is to see the peppers I've kept in the greenhouse (which until now have been growing well) appear to start suffering from whatever is afflicting my tomatoes. I'd be surprised if they were getting too hot this early on in the year as they're supposed to grow in much warmer climates?

[Guest]

The indoor pepper does look like a deficiency of some sort. When did you repot? As mentioned try giving it a liquid feed. I tend to find the first few leaves of toms quite often go yellow at some point but soon recover so wouldn't worry to much.

[JBFUK]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone I really appreciate the feedback. I re-potted everything two weekends ago. I also gave everything a feed with some tomatorite on Tuesday this week.

I have started to harden off a few of my potted tomatoes and peppers by putting them out in the morning and bringing them back in to the greenhouse when I get home from work in the evening. I was thinking about leaving them out overnight by the end of the bank holiday but it sounds like this might still be too soon. My dad has some tomatoes out on his patio which are not taken in at all and they don't seem to have any problems at all - very odd.

I'll pay attention to my thermometer to see how cold the greenhouse is getting at night. If it's dropping below 10'c do I need to heat it? It seems like quite an expensive thing to have to do!

Last year one of my tomato plants did look like it had some blight - some leaves withering and a few fruit developed big brown spots (whilst they were still green / hard. I removed the offending leaves and fruit (and disposed of via garden waste bin) and the rest of the plants seemed to get along fine.

Is there any harm in giving things a light spray with Bordeaux mix to try and ward off any fungal/bacterial infection - even if that's not my problem at the moment? We do seem to have a lot of fungus growing on trees and shrubs in the garden so it's something that concerns me a bit.

Guess I should start germinating some more seeds so that if all goes pear shaped I have a second chance this year. It's not too late now is it? At least the morning glory shoot up like rockets!

[Scarlet]

Last year the weather was very different and the nights were very warm, you would have had great results from sowing early and putting out in the greenhouse during Spring. This year the nights have been dipping well below 10 often. I'm a pepper and chilli fan and although the green house can get in the 20's during the day it is much too cold for them even in the GH at night, I wouldn't put a pepper plant out until June overnight. Bring them in during the evening. I carry mine back indoors. Same for your tomatoes really, they will buck up when the night time temps rise. There may be some creepies in your GH, have a look around, under leaves etc see if you can spot anything.

[WendyC]

Tomorite is used when the plants have started fruiting. If you want to enoucourage strong green growth then you need something which is high in nitrogen.

[starloc]

If you think they may be infected with something like blight, give them a spray with soluble asprin , 1 tablet in 1 or 2 litres of water...it seems to work better than Bordeaux mix and makes less mess, and costs less

[Bill HH]

Welcome,

I would say its the cold nights we are having, yesterday was a glorious day and my greenhouse was sweltering but my max/min thermometer recorded a night temperature of 6deg.It's almost impossible to resist planting those seeds early as i know to my cost, and in fact I got away with it last year. I think your plants will improve dramaticaly when we get warmer nights. In my case my tomatoes have just failed to grow, they look ok but they seem to have decided its just too cold yet mate.