Tomatoes get sick...

Hi there,

I think I might have a sick garden. Every time I plant tomatoes they end up growing well for a while, then the leaves start going yellow and eventually get crispy brown and dry up and fall off.

Here's a badly affected leaf (in the early stage of decay) on a plant only a month old or so.

This plant is only just starting to flower. Already on two of the branches the leaves are starting to go sickly. Does anyone know what this is? And why it always gets my poor tomatoes? This variety is organic beefsteak tomato grown from seed, but it also affected storebought seedlings, and wild cherry tomatoes. Usually I get some yield of tomatoes, but the sickness stunts the plants while there are plenty still unripe fruit. What a waste of tasty toms!!

Can you help? I've got a sick capsicum too if you've got any ideas it's on another thread in this forum...

PS. I'm loving this forum! Thanks for everyone's help!

Hi ;
I have the same problem here in Va. USA. They tell me it is a diseases tomatoes get in hot humid weather. It is very hard to stop. Some thing you can do to help slow it down are.
1. Don't plant tomatoes in the same place every year.
2. Don't plant the same veriety of tomatoe every year. change it up. Try to get a disease resistance veriety.
3. As the leaves on the bottom of the plant turn brown and die. Cut them off and trash them away from the garden. The tool you use to cut the leaves off should be disinfected before you use it again.
4. Keep the area around the tomatoes clean. pick up all rotten tomatoes and plants and discard them in the trash away from the garden. At the end of the season pull up the plants root and all. Trash them also, away from the garden.
Well I hope this will help you some.
Andy

You might want to ask this question in the tomato forum. Several well experienced tomato growers post there and would know just what this is.

Have you tried growing them in large pots, in fresh bought-in compost, to avoid any contact with soil-borne diseases?

MY tomatoes end up like this much later on in growing cycle, here in Sydney. From the look of the leaves maybe they could do with some nitrogen in the soil.

i have a small garden. i have 2 beds and i rotate tomatoes each year. i also use organic blood every year.tomatoes leach nitrogen from the soil.the blood is the best source of nitrigen. water only at the base of the plants , you can buy spikes that you stick in the ground and screw 1 liter bottles to.that way no water splashes on the soil. use mulch, buy a soil tesr kit. or see if your county has it for free. buy something for tomatoe fungus or blackspot at your local.nursery. if you spray now you might be able to save them. plants look like they need nitrogen to me.

Thanks everyone...sorry it's taken so long to reply! I'm planting tomatoes again right now (in a different spot (thanks heatcool), and I'm going to make sure they get enough nitrogen!
:)
Cheers,
bonnie

Bonnie, be careful with adding nitrogen :) You might want to check your soil before adding anything major. Too much nitrogen will give you lots of beautiful, lush foliage, but NO tomatoes. It's a balancing act. The tomaot forum has lots of good info, check the "sticky" at the top of the forum. Good luck!

Toms also need a lot of calcium. I add a dozen crushed egg shells in each place I prepare for a plant. Yep, I save up all year.

Use a fertilizer high in phosphate to balance your nitrogen. The phosphate encourages flowering, and therefore fruiting. Here in the US, I usually fertilize two to 3 times over the course of the growing season with a 0-46-0 "triple phosphate" fertilizer. I fertilize early - just after planting - with a high nitrogen fertilizer like Miracle-gro, and then with a slow release balanced granular fertilizer, 5-5-5 or 10-10-10. I do that about once every 3 weeks, and the triple phosphate about every 6 to 8 weeks. I am still picking tomatoes in October here in the US. And peppers. And beans. And watermelon.

Sojourner

You might also try spraying the plant with epsom salts water. 1 teaspoon of epsom salts to 1 quart of warm water and mix throughly. The tomatoes need the magnesium and this also works wonders to set bloom in peppers and squash as well!