21-05-2004, 07:06 AM
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Tomato plants...HELP !!!
writes:
I'm an amatuer gardner. I bought three tomato sets and put them in a few
weeks ago. All palnts took off and grew well...looking good and even
setting
blooms. at about 2' high they ALL just wilted to nothing...and shriveled
up.
It looked just like they needed water but the soil was kept moist and
water
was NOT the problem.
Any ideas?
I pulled them up and rinsed the dirt from the root ball and looked for
signs
of trouble. I could find nothing.
What did I do wrong?
Thanks for your time and input.
Blessings,
Dave in Florida
I'm very interested to hear what others have to say. With my limited
knowledge, two things come to mind:
Overwatering (tomato plants do not like wet feet, best to water them every
few days and not keep them continually wet, I soak once a week or so and
leave them alone the rest of the time)
More likely, did you fertilize them? This sounds like what would happen
if there was "hot" fertilizer, like putting fresh chicken manure on them
or too much of a commercial fertilizer. It sounds to me like they were
doing very well until they got out of their "comfort zone" of the dirt
surrounding them when they were planted (original soil plus just a bit of
garden soil). Plants need fertilizer but too much will damage/kill them.
Two possibilities, but there are surely more.
Have you grown things in that location before? I'm suspecting the soil is
the problem, perhaps something planted there before. Many plants will not
grow where the aborvitae plants were; I'll likely have to dig up the soil
and replace it with soil from my garden and a lot of horse/steer manure to
make it healthy for other things. However, it is great for flower bulbs;
I had a huge-blossomed dahlia out there the first year!
Did you have any kind of mulch on them? There are certain things (yew,
for instance, or black walnut leaves) that are harmful to many plants,
especially food plants.
A man walking his dog in our neighborhood, allowing his dog to stop and
**** on my paw-paw tree killed the paw-paw tree. The ones I planted two
years ago are also in the front but both have PVC protectors around them
and are doing just fine. Also, I told the ba**ard to keep his dog off my
property and I better not lose any more bushes or trees! Since then, he
has avoided our block which, of course, was a tremendous loss (not!).
Good luck on finding the problem. I hope you are willing to try again.
It's still early enough to have bearing plants if you plant again. You
might consider growing at least one in a huge pot (planter tub or plastic
barrel/garbage can) where you can totally control the soil.
Glenna
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