Posted on 06/17/2011 5:12:35 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners. My tomato plants are struggling to survive these hot brutal sunny days. Their leaves are all curled up trying to save water. Temperatures are consistently in the mid to high 90s. My winter and summer squash along with all of my hot and sweet pepper plants are doing great. It does not look like any of my Opailka or Viva Italia paste tomatoes will make it through so I have restarted some more seeds in the hopes I can get them transplanted in time for a late harvest. I have about 4 Marion tomato plants that are in the rear of my garden that are doing well for now. They get some shade in the late afternoon so I will put my new paste tomato transplants in that same area of the garden. I may be down but not out!
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We are supposed to be in the high 80s Thu. and Fri. I don’t know about beyond that. Just back from the garden. Did a foliar spray on all the plants with another mix of AlgoFlash and Sea Magic. Then did a root feeding with MG Bloom Booster 15-30-15. I am hoping the shade I am providing will help a few of my tomatoes to pull through.
Did anyone have this problem? Should I try to save them or should I just start all over again?
I don't think you'll find a lot of comforting information. You will most certainly find a lot of conflicting information. Chances are your plants don't need saving. They will fix themselves.
I was hit pretty hard by blossom end rot this year. It hit almost every tomato and some bell pepper plants. It was especially perplexing because the plants were in well amended soil and into each planting hole I added worm castings and fertilizer with calcium. The soil was covered with red plastic mulch and the plants were watered deeply every two days. Down the street my father-in-law, who during the Fall had a big problem with BER which I didn't have, has suffered almost no BER. Go figure.
What I did was add a side dressing of epsom salt to each plant and water it in. New tomatoes were BER free. Did epsom salt fix the problem? Wael, it didn't hurt, but according to Carolyn Male, a retired professor of microbiology and avid tomato grower, BER was going to go away anyway.
I now have huge baskets fill with more tomatoes than we can eat. The only reason I don't have even more is because of this hellish drought and heat. The plants have stopped setting new fruit. (Today's forecast for San Antonio is 106.) I've pulled up the determinate varieties and will nurse the still growing indeterminates in hopes of new fruit when temperature drop in a few months.
Take a look at Carolyn's article at Blossom End Rot (BER) in Tomatoes
So, BER is a physiological condition, cannot be cured, and current literature data suggests it cannot be prevented. It occurs on some, but not all varieties of tomatoes, is usually seen early in the season and then stops, for most folks. It would be nice to say that you could even out your watering, prevent droughts and heavy rainfalls, ensure even and not rapid growth of plants and not disturb the roots by shallow cultivating. But on a practical basis, I think we all know that's almost impossible. So, BER has never bothered me, I just ignore it, and it goes away with time.
Just pick off any BER fruits that appear and soon the next fruits to ripen will BER-less.
It is the same in central TX. Hot wind, burning sun. My tomatoes are still putting out new tomatoes, except my cherry tomatoes, they have a few green fruit. My heirlooms seem to be ok, one is full of flowers, the others are ok, but no flowers. I started them late. My squash quit putting out fruit, so I’ve pulled them, the cukes were going gang busters, but then just quit, they still have lots of blooms, but no cuke. The okra think this weather is great. The banana peppers are and have been about an inch long, they are not growing longer.
Tomatoes WILL NOT RIPEN above 90 degrees, in most places. They will stay dormant during the hot days and do their growing at night.
I live in S. Utah, six miles from the AZ border, so I have learned this the hard way.
I don’t know where in Texas you live, nor the variety. I hope you were told that blueberries need a LOT of cold winter temps in order to set fruit. Unless you bought those that are okay in southern temps, that need just less cold. But they need many hours of cold or they become an ornamental plant and nothing else.
Make sure they are not on the southern or western exposures; it will help somewhat.
TWO CUPS!?! That’s not going to go very far pruning my giant willow! LOL
I don’t think they will put on new tomatoes when the temps go over 90. Not one of the new blooms has set lately.
Try this:
Remove a lower “branch” from your tomato plant. Pot it up in a five gallon container. Remove all the leaves from the roots until you’re about at the 2” mark of the plant’s height. At this point, you’ll start to believe I’m nuts and you were stupid to read this post. LOL
Tomato plants are one of the few that will root anywhere the plant meets the soil. There is no such thing as planting a tomato too deep. Use a good potting mix, water it well, and put it in the shade. On the north side of your home, if it’s still 100 degrees.
You’ll see the difference and thank me later. And you’ll have some tomatoes!
When it starts getting back to 80 degrees each day, you can put those pots in the sun.
But not until then.
O Neil and Princess high bush blueberries were what I planted. I got them from a nursery in East Texas and I am pretty sure they will produce here. Establishing them is the first hurdle.
Then there is the issue of the local soil being somewhat alkali. Where I planted them is sandy and normally gets a lot of rain runoff from my north roof. I think they will work. I have not mulched them with peatmoss yet, but purchase some last week. They are planted on the south side of my north stockade fence.
Now that's really interesting. I'm having just the opposite experience here in San Antonio.
Tomatoes have stopped producing new fruit, except for my grape and cherry vareties. In fact, my Celebrity, BHN-444, and Tycoons just shriveled up. So, I've pulled them. These are recommended varieties for our area but they were the first to go belly up.
The indeterminate varieties, for the most part, are still healthy. Those that are not will go under my pruning shears in hopes of saving them for the Fall. I think I'm also going to see what happens when I stick a cutting in the ground.
Cukes are bizarre. The first plantings, Suyo Long and Baby Cucino, have definitely slowed down big time but still produce new fruit. My three Bonnie Bush Hybrids are sprawling and loaded with flowers but have produced only one cucumber. The second plantings of Armenian and Palace King are starting to climb and have already sprouted a few young cucumbers. Getting ready to start seeds for the next round of Suyo Long and Baby Cucinos. I am really satisfied with those two.
Not so satisfied with White Wonder Cucumbers. They are BITTER. Got the seeds free as part of a Burpee anniversary promotion. Googling around I find bitterness is common in the variety and is attributed to heat. That definitely excludes them from a second try.
If we continue to see blooms dying on the maters, I am going to do what you did and put up a shade cloth. We have come too far to loose them now. I am thinking that since we do not have as much sun as we should that maybe we will get lucky if that respect. Our sunny times come mid-day, before the temp hits 100.
I didn't zoom in enough to see the beaver in the picture...in fact one can barely see the log. Hubby showed me how to zoom, and we managed to get this one of a duck.
This morning, there was a turtle there, but we had to leave for work before we could get a picture.
Here is a pic. of one of my garden gnomes with some painted daisies.
Those are great pictures. But keep our camera at hand, ‘cause I want to see that beaver. I am very fond of Canadian beaver.
That should say, Keep YOUR camera at hand...
Go figure.
I love your home page!
LOL, OK AFTR, I'll try!
I started some foxglove from seed last spring, and transplanted it into a corner of the lawn last summer. (Biennial flower) It was worth it. This picture was taken one hour ago. :-)
NOW THAT IS BEAUTIFUL.
Good job fanfan.
The soil is not great, though I work on improvements every year. It is the east - north east side of the house, plus lots of trees, so the shade is pretty deep.
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