Being determined to do my own thing, I simply lined my large coconut lined baskets with cardboard before I filled it with my wonderful dirt recipe that I came up with last year. Containers tend to dry out rather fast, so I have religiously been watering them every day so I could prove it wasn't a crazy idea after all. I mean, if they can grow in a bag, they should certainly be able to grow in a basket, right???
Things progressed beautifully and one of the two plants put out so many flowers I didn't know what I was going to do with all of the tomatoes. Remember I planted a total of 16 plants this year?
Imagine my displeasure when I went about checking my plants on my daily rounds and saw that some of the leaves were wilting!
Upon closer inspection I saw all kinds of crazy bumps on the stem of the plant. I was sure it had become infected with some horrid pests and started to panic. I checked my other plants too, but none of the rest seemed to be affected yet.
What in the world would affect one plant and not the others? Was this just the first of the great tomato blight of 2009? Should I pull the plant out and dispose of it in hopes that the other plants would thrive despite the pest infection?
Thoughts like these swirled through my head as I attempted to scrape these "eggs" off the lower stem of my plant with my thumbnail. They weren't coming off too well and I didn't want to severely damage this plant if there was anything I could do to save my experiment so I can complete it. All I could think of was running inside to ask my tomato growing buddies what was wrong with them. This is my first attempt at growing tomatoes after all. What did I do but headed for my favorite resource, the internet!
I managed to google bumps on tomato stems and all that came up was things about humidity and over watering that causes the stem to think it needs to grow more roots. Their bumps were tan though and mine are all green or white so I'm still a bit unsure. Is that all that is wrong with my plants? Did I just catch the bumps at an earlier stage causing them to be a different color than what others have observed? Can I really over water something in a coconut lined basket? If so, I'll be completely relieved. If it's something else that I need to worry about, could you please let me know?
Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Cindy
5 comments:
I can't tell for sure. I hope it's not the 2009 blight but it sure could be. I guess you know you're suppose to remove the diseased parts--but if you don't want to---go ahead and plant the whole container in the ground. Cut a hole in the bottom of the liner and plant the whole thing in the ground. It's not likely to live in that container.
I did go back and look at the leaves again and they do look wilted. That means the blight I feel. So sorry.
I've got the same issue here in Ohio. It only is apparent on one tomato plant - a yellow pear variety. Two others close by don't seem infected.
Hi Cindy! I noticed some curling on a couple of my plants(I have 22 of them), but no other irregularities. I made a mistake this year - planted potatoes close to tomatoes. I didn't plan to plant potatoes, it just happened that I had some grocery store potatoes sprouted. Anyway, I'm sorry I can not tell what is going on with your plants. As for the watering, I heard that tomatoes don't like to be overwatered. They lose taste. They also don't like their leaves to be wet. I'm sure you didn't wet the foliage while watering them, did you? Moist, humid air is not good for them. They like sun and heat. I would isolate the sick plants, if there is a space available. If you are sure it's blight, then get rid of them. Good luck!
They grow out the bottom of pots so some of the water drains from the pot onto the stem. I'm pretty sure it's the rooting issue now since the bumps have turned tan like people were talking about before. I'll just have to cut back on watering them. Hopefully that will solve the problem. Still lots of flowers on these but no signs of tomato growth.
I can't help you figure out what is going on, but my tomatoes almost always get diseased and die, but I get some tomatoes first. I am curious to see updates on the tomatoes.
Post a Comment