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Post by balc2 on Jun 24, 2022 20:49:54 GMT
I'm no longer a happy tom grower! My plants that seemed to be growing so well a week or so ago have gone into "reverse gear" They now look decidedly "under the weather"! In the last week all the plants are showing wilting tops! This is something I've never seen before in the 20 years I've been growing toms on the balcony! The wilting has nothing to do with over/under watering.
I gave my son 2 seedlings & yesterday when I told him about the tips of my plants wilting he said his were perfectly fine & had flowers though no fruit at the moment.
I'm going to upload a couple of photos I took yesterday morning so you can see what I mean:
  
As the pictures were taken early in the morning. If it were wilting caused by the heat they would have recovered during the night. Sorry the pictures are not very good by it is very difficult to get the plants to really show what's the matter with them.
I can only think it something to do with the compost in the growbags as all show the same symptoms, even the 3 that get the least sunlight of all the plants on the balcony. Even when the sunlight is on the plants its only for a few hours. Before watering them a couple of days ago I stuck my finger into the compost in each bag & they were all very slightly damp, nevertheless I watered them as we were forecast high temps for a couple of days this week - which we got!
The plants were already showing signs of slight wilting before watering & they didn't improve the next day. The plants made good progress for about two weeks but now they seemed to have stopped. They should be about waist high by now but they hardly pass my knees!
There are flowers on the plants but no fruit as yet. The lower leaves show no sign of wilting, it's only the tops.
On one plant you may be able to make out some brownish patch. It's the only plant like this.
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Post by SueA on Jun 25, 2022 6:58:56 GMT
Do you ever get blight in your area balc2, I seem to have that on 2 tubs of potatoes in our garden this year, I try to hold it back by picking off any leaves which look suspect & do the same if I get it on the tomatoes. It could possibly be due to the big changes in temperature we've had recently as well as your plants are outdoors although sheltered? |
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Post by seaburn on Jun 26, 2022 12:06:12 GMT
I wonder if they have got too hot. I seem to remember the RHS advice line suggesting that this caused curling leaves. Certainlt the cold does and the stems take on a blue tinge.
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Post by balc2 on Jun 27, 2022 20:38:46 GMT
SueA Yes we get blight here. I lost tomatoes on the allotment I used to have due to blight. Not lost potatoes though. The worst year for blight here was a year when I had planted several varieties of toms, especially a small plum type for which I saved seeds from some tomatoes that came in our shopping one Christmas. The plants were VERY vigorous & had lots of fruit but the blight decimated all my plants in just a few days I could have cried! Yet ONE 'Gardener's Delight' a little separated from the rest managed to survive & even produced a few edible toms! That's was also the only year I ever had blight on the balcony! They must have become infected from the spores on my clothes from clearing the dead plants away on the allotment.
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Post by balc2 on Jun 27, 2022 20:47:12 GMT
seaburn I don't know the cause but this evening I was watering my plants & I checked the growbags to see if they needed watering. I thought they might need some water so I watered them & I checked the plants again to see if there was any change. I found some sideshoots that hadn't been removed but I decided not to remove them but to let them grow to see if they will replace the wilted tips. None of the sideshoots, at least for the moment, show signs of wilting. So perhaps all is not lost & I may get some toms after all this year! I went to my son's house this afternoon & he showed me the two plants I gave him & they look perfectly fine, no wilting! They are also taller than mine & I think they have a few small fruits on them. I saw more bees in his garden this pm than I think I've seen in the year to date! He hasn't been cutting his lawn so there are now 100s of White Clover flowers full of bees! He shouldn't have problems with his plants setting fruit!
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Post by balc2 on Jul 1, 2022 16:27:42 GMT
I've "bitten the bullet" as it were & "beheaded" my tomato plants on the balcony! 
Before:
After:
 
As several plant have good, strong sideshoots I've cut back the tops to these. I've even left a couple on several of the plants.
Yesterday I gave them all a watering with a general purpose fertilizer & now I hope they will "take off" after the drastic action I took this morning.
As they say: "Only time will tell"!
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Post by Eli on Jul 1, 2022 18:35:02 GMT
Good luck balc2 ! Let us know how they get on ....
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Post by balc2 on Jul 4, 2022 16:16:32 GMT
Eli I will, no worries! Although only a couple of days have gone by since I cut them back they are still looking good & I hope they make better progress in the coming days. A bit more warmth would give them a helping hand as well! So far there is no sign of the sideshoots "wilting! so I take that to be a good sign! 
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Post by balc2 on Jul 5, 2022 20:50:09 GMT
I watered all the plants on the balcony this morning with a general purpose fertilizer. The tomatoes also got a soaking. As we are forecast a few warmer days towards the weekend I hope they will put on a spurt! The sideshoots are all looking good at present & if there is no more repeat of the wilting they should grow fine & produce at least a few good tomatoes before the growing season comes to an end.
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Post by Eli on Jul 6, 2022 1:31:14 GMT
My tomatoes have very few flowers as yet so I'm going to feed them, I think they may not have enough light though. They're next to a perspex sheet but there are things in front of it.
My peppers and cucumber have some developing fruit.
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Post by seaburn on Jul 6, 2022 7:17:10 GMT
Dont overfeed them and dilute the feed correctly. If it is too concentrated the plant will lose water from its cells.
The side shoots will happily take over. I know from experience when one of my girls accidentally snapped the top off a plant years ago.
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Post by daitheplant on Jul 6, 2022 20:21:28 GMT
I watered all the plants on the balcony this morning with a general purpose fertilizer. The tomatoes also got a soaking. As we are forecast a few warmer days towards the weekend I hope they will put on a spurt! The sideshoots are all looking good at present & if there is no more repeat of the wilting they should grow fine & produce at least a few good tomatoes before the growing season comes to an end. Did you water from above the plants or under them, ie, did you water the plants or the compost?
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Post by balc2 on Jul 7, 2022 20:28:55 GMT
daitheplant I always water the compost - never water from above!
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Post by balc2 on Jul 7, 2022 20:35:41 GMT
The toms didn't need watering today but they are beginning to make some progress again! One or two plants have sideshoots that are now thickening out & beginning to look like proper stems once again. For the time being I haven't noticed a repeat of the wilting so I hope they have recovered from that & will carry on as if nothing had happened - though they will have lost 4/5 weeks growth in the meantime!  . I'm hoping that the heatwave we are forecast will move them a long a bit & that I get plenty of flowers soon. I only saw one new flower open today & so I tapped it a bit to see if I can encourage it to set! . |
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Post by daitheplant on Jul 7, 2022 20:41:36 GMT
balc2, are the plants dwarf,small fruited tomatoes, or maincrop, normal sized toms?
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