Planted out tomatoes and peppers

OK, so I’m a horrible tomato gardener. I’ve not figured out how to sucessfully grow them. Im sure it didn’t help planting them in hot conditions helped.

I’m not sure if they are over watered or under watered. I dug the holes about 12-18" deep. I amended the soil with about 50% compost. Topped with some bark mulch. I pinched off the lowest growth.

Can anyone tell from the pictures what the problem is?

When did you plant tomatoes? How long did they sit in the soil?
On the first picture the plant looks stressed from the bright sun or heat. If you have hot weather now it is possible that it dried out during the day, since the potting medium dries out fast. If it is newly planted it had no time to develop roots in the native soil, so it can not withstand dry conditions for long. It is small for the time being and it’ll take very long time to grow leaves, then to flower and to set fruits and finally to ripen tomatoes. You may get some tomatoes in September, but your yield will be a lot more if you planted your tomatoes in May. Tomatoes do not set fruits in hot weather very well. The best time for me is from the middle to the end of May. The next wave for the fruit set will be in the middle of August. You may still catch it.
On the second picture the plant looked like it have some deficiency. Did it look like this when you bought it? When the plants sit in tiny pots for 2-3 months, they get all kinds of deficiencies. If it looked normal when you bought it then it is possible that it got burned by compost, which might be too strong, especially in the combination with the hot and dry weather. I also see the granules with mineral fertilizer on the pictures. Too much fertilizer can burn too.

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I don’t know Dave. You probably planted them right, with the compost and mulch. Did the plants look healthy when you bought them, like nice green leaves and stalks?

I don’t think planting them in the heat hurt them, unless you didn’t water them. The top pic looks like it maybe they might be going thru some transplant shock. Did you give them some fertilizer after you planted them? The bottom plant looks like it has some kind of disease already, maybe septoria. But I’m not speaking from a high level of knowledge.

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I know I planted them late this year. It was a spur of the moment decision. I always say I’m going to start my own tomato’s by seed in March but I never do. were Bonnie plants in 4" pots from Lowe’s. They looked perfectly healthy on Saturday when I bought them. One of them is early girl which I bought thinking it would help my late planting. The other is beefsteak. It was in the mid 80s the day I planted them. I gave them a thorough watering at planting and watered each day since. The granular fertilizer is 10-10-10 and it was put down immediately before taking the picture so it had absolutely nothing to do with the issues I’m having. I used 1 TBS per plant.

I wondered if it might be early blight. But I really have no clue. The plant is now somewhat rubbery feeling. I pulled up the branches to make sure the leaves were touching the ground and I noticed they were rubbery like old celery.

Well last night about 1am I was on my tablet surfing, and I noticed our dog barking a lot, which is not unusual for nighttime. So, I grabbed my spotlight and shown it over at the tomato patch and two glowing green eyes were staring back at me. Kind of creepy, but then I realized it was probably a stupid deer again.

I rushed to get some clothes and boots on, and ran outside towards the patch with the light on. The varmit was still staring at me but slinked away into the brush as I got closer.

I was hoping I had scared it off before it had got into the patch. But, upon inspecting the plants with the light, I noticed that a couple of plants had 3 or 4 stalks chomped off, and maybe 4 had a single twig removed. Naturally I was infuriated, but there wasn’t a lot I could do at 2 in the morning. So I tightened up the fencing and went to the house.

I then got out my night vision monocular to see if I could see anything. Didn’t see anything outside around the patch, but heard several snorts in the woods close by. I assume it was a buck snorting. He was probably mocking me, I know it…

Today, I put a second perimeter fence about 3 feet out from the original fence. Instead of tape I used fishing line run at three levels. I figured that if a deer runs into the line without being able to see it, it might freak them out enough to keep them from going further. May or may not work, but thought I would try anyway, since the tape fence apparently wasn’t effective enough.

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Dave, it does not look like disease to me, young tomatoes are quite resistant to leaf diseases. The other possibility is that they get too much water and not enough oxygen for the roots. If they are not dry they might be too wet.

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Well, watering it a lot every day wouldn’t help. When I planted mine, I just gave them a couple cups of water at planting and some the next day, but no more. I actually haven’t watered them since then, since we’ve got rain maybe once a week, and they get dew on them at night. They seem to be getting on alright after 4 weeks or so.

I’d lay off watering them for a few days, tomatoes don’t like too much water but thrive during warm sunny weather.

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I’m glad Maria is agreeing with my amateur advice. I would defer to her knowledge on matters like this since I’ve only been growing these things seriously for a couple of years. I still have lots to learn, that’s why I’m here.

Thanks for the replies. Guess it wont hurt to withhold water for a while and see how they respond. I did water them pretty heavy since they were new transplants. Only once a day though.

Yeah that is not that much. Shade them if you can till they recover. If they recover. They look bad.
It could be a blight, not ruling that out. I doubt they will make it. Don’t give up on them all the same.

Drew, didya get to try any of those Sungolds? I’m just now letting my plants flower out, so will have to wait a while. If the deer leave them alone, that is.

Thanks for the stabilizing explanation. Sounds kinda “mad scientist”, but in a good way. If I save seeds from this year’s heirloom fruit, will that seed be slightly different than the seed planted last spring? I understand it’ll be the same variety, but will it be like a hybrid of the original? Since it was grown in this particular environment wouldn’t it be more hardy and productive if planted next year?

I’m not sure one generation does all that much? I would hope eventually their would be an advantage locally, but I really don’t know?

Yes, very good cherry tomatoes. I have grown them before. A few were ripe. My first regular tomato is ripe. KBX is the variety.

Drew, congratulations on your first ripe tomato!
I am checking mine and they are going to start repenting soon too.
I have been in the garden this morning and would like to share a couple of pictures.
Here is the part of my tomato bed it makes me happy every time when I go by it.

On the next picture is Jimmy Nardello pepper. It is new for me, but it looks like it will be a keeper.

My favorite Antohi Romanian pepper hast at least 5 peppers, you just can not see them well because of the leaves.

First eggplant of the year.

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Thanks I picked it a little early, leaving for my cottage today. I want to have some cheese and tomato sandwiches so am bringing it with me. It should ripen completely by Saturday when I plan to make the sandwiches.

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Looking great as usual!

OK, here are some new pics of the patch, after planting out a month ago.

Wide angle view, showing the tape fence and barely visible fishing line “fence” which forms like a second perimeter about 3 feet out. As you will see, the plot needs some more weeding and mulching of the plants. I pulled a lot of weeds out yesterday, actually.

Pic of the rows. I planted with 4 feet between them, with 10 rows of 7 plants each. There are a couple rows of peppers on the back side of the patch. As you can see, about all the plants are staked, some with 2 stakes already. The red cups are the cups the seedlings were transplanted to after they had outgrown their Jiffy peat pods growing under lights in the house. The cups have the variety written on them, plus I have the layout of this and all the other garden plots on a spreadsheet. That’s not too geeky, is it??

Watermelon beefsteak with Aunt Ruby German Green in background. Note the huge potato leaves on the WM.

Cherokee Purple

Lemon Oxheart in foreground, Pink Brandywine behind

Red Calabash, I think

Yellow Brandywine, as you can tell I likes me some BW tomatoes, especially the yellow variety.

One of my Chocolate Cherry plants that got munched on by the deer- ARRGH! But, I think it’ll grow out of it. I had some topped a couple weeks ago and they’re recuperating nicely.

A Tomatillo plant, which I’ve never grown before. Very interesting, looks like a tomato/pepper cross

OK, that should be enough for now. Hope you enjoy the new shots.

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And for your viewing pleasure some recent pix around the farm.

Shot of the corn patch, with some plants already tasseling.

Some ripening blackberries

Some of our sweet potatoes, doing well…

A view across the yard towards the 'mater patch. Need to mow again!

Some teensy little red cabbage sprouts. Hope they do well, couldn’t get any leafy veggies to grow last year.

Bomber says “hey”

Our very lush green front yard, quite a contrast compared to just a few months ago

And finally, a shot of a beautiful band of clouds at sunset.

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You may be planting your cabbage and other leafy greens at the wrong time of year for your area. High heat can cause them to fail or bolt at an early stage. Northerners have the ability to grow them at the same time as tomatoes and other summer veggies, but those of us with hot summers aren’t able to grow an entire salad at one time. Most leafy greens can handle some frost. I actually grow mine over winter, covered with row cloth during freezes, so that they take off once the daylight gets around 10 1/2 hours. They may do better in your area as spring or fall crops. If you are going to plant brassicas like cabbage or broccoli as a fall crop, you can start your seeds indoors where it’s cooler in a few weeks.

You could also try providing shade for the ones in the ground now. It might reduce some to the heat stress.

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Well, it’s warm here, but not overly hot, and our evenings usually get down into the 50s-60s, so they might be OK. I just wanted to try and see if I could get them to even sprout, especially after last year, when none of them came up. We’re not even trying broccoli or cauliflower, they don’t seem to grow here at all.

Considering how hard it is to get them to sprout in our soil, I might try to start them indoors, either later this summer or next spring. I guess most leafy veggies would be OK to transplant?

Yes, even lettuces. Spinach has always done as well, or better, when I direct seed it, though. It’s only a guess on my part, but mid-August might be about the time that you’d transplant them for fall planting there. Your county extension service would know the preferred timing for your area.