The Gardening Thread

[Jitter]

Thanks, the thread is great! But the photo is kinda disturbing...

[Róisín]

Yet kudzu is such a useful plant! I can only suppose that those who have it as a weed don’t use it?

[Solokov]

Yet kudzu is such a useful plant! I can only suppose that those who have it as a weed don’t use it?

It's a right menace in the American south and they sometimes broadcast spray herbicide and use actual flamethrowers and not just weed burners to handle it.

[Róisín]

And yet the tubers can be eaten or made into flour like yams or jicama. It was originally introduced to the South to repair and prevent erosion damage, it is a nitrogen fixer, and a good source of material for biofuel. Plus it has many uses in traditional medicine, including reducing the cravings of alcoholism. The flowers are very beautiful, and are excellent bee fodder - only problem is that the honey comes out this weird purplish colour, like the flowers. I wonder if the dried flowers might make a dye....

[Solokov]

And yet the tubers can be eaten or made into flour like yams or jicama. It was originally introduced to the South to repair and prevent erosion damage, it is a nitrogen fixer, and a good source of material for biofuel. Plus it has many uses in traditional medicine, including reducing the cravings of alcoholism. The flowers are very beautiful, and are excellent bee fodder - only problem is that the honey comes out this weird purplish colour, like the flowers. I wonder if the dried flowers might make a dye....

I have no problem with weird colorations of honey. We get black sage, and buckwheat honey off my family's ranch and the beekeepers have (years back) gotten purplish pomegranate honey.

[yeethaw_gang]

Does anyone have any tips or tricks for growing tomatoes? Just sort of generally. 

I've got 4 plants, and they're...okay, I guess?? They could be better.

[Róisín]

What sort of tomatoes? Cherry tomatoes? Beefsteaks? Roma? They mostly like a sunny spot and some support to lean against or climb up. Only water from above if you water in the morning, as leaving the foliage wet overnight encourages moulds. Pinch out the tips to make the plants bushy. Mulch high up the stems - as with many solanaceous plants tomatoes will put out extra roots from the stem to absorb more water and food. Leave enough leaves in the canopy to shade the fruit if the weather is very hot. They like a rich soil and enough water to keep the soil moist but not sopping. They like nitrogen fertilisers.

[thorny]

Does anyone have any tips or tricks for growing tomatoes? Just sort of generally. 

I've got 4 plants, and they're...okay, I guess?? They could be better.

Need more info. How do they not look right? Do the leaves look diseased, or pale, or bitten, or stripey or spotted, and if so what sort of stripes or spots or bites? Are they not blooming? How old are the plants? Are they in pots, or field grown? What variety? What climate are you in? What's your soil like?

Róisín is as usual generally right but I'll throw in that too much nitrogen can cause lots of vegetative growth without much fruit, and/or improper fruit development and/or increased insect problems; and the extent to which pruning is useful and how to prune can depend on variety and also on whether you're aiming for the most fruit, or the largest fruit, or in the case of indeterminates fruit over the longest season.

[yeethaw_gang]

What sort of tomatoes? Cherry tomatoes? Beefsteaks? Roma? They mostly like a sunny spot and some support to lean against or climb up. Only water from above if you water in the morning, as leaving the foliage wet overnight encourages moulds. Pinch out the tips to make the plants bushy. Mulch high up the stems - as with many solanaceous plants tomatoes will put out extra roots from the stem to absorb more water and food. Leave enough leaves in the canopy to shade the fruit if the weather is very hot. They like a rich soil and enough water to keep the soil moist but not sopping. They like nitrogen fertilisers.

I'm not sure, they're certainly not cherries. They might be Romas. I tend to water in the evening as I don't time in the morning.

Need more info. How do they not look right? Do the leaves look diseased, or pale, or bitten, or stripey or spotted, and if so what sort of stripes or spots or bites? Are they not blooming? How old are the plants? Are they in pots, or field grown? What variety? What climate are you in? What's your soil like?

Róisín is as usual generally right but I'll throw in that too much nitrogen can cause lots of vegetative growth without much fruit, and/or improper fruit development and/or increased insect problems; and the extent to which pruning is useful and how to prune can depend on variety and also on whether you're aiming for the most fruit, or the largest fruit, or in the case of indeterminates fruit over the longest season.

The leaves sort of dry (burn?) at the edges, then the whole leaf withers. I'll need to take a better look at them when I get home. There's also ants on them, so I sprayed them after I watered them yesterday. They're field grown, from seed. I reckon they're about 4 or 5 moths old the the very most.

[thorny]

I'm not sure, they're certainly not cherries. They might be Romas. I tend to water in the evening as I don't time in the morning.

The leaves sort of dry (burn?) at the edges, then the whole leaf withers. I'll need to take a better look at them when I get home. There's also ants on them, so I sprayed them after I watered them yesterday. They're field grown, from seed. I reckon they're about 4 or 5 moths old the the very most.

What did you spray them with? (And I doubt the ants themselves were a problem; though they might indicate one. Please don't just randomly spray plants unless you know you've got a problem, and one that the spray is labeled for. Were there aphids?)

What part of the world are you in?

Try to find pictures that match the symptoms you're seeing. You really can't treat the problem unless you first find out what it is. This might be some help:

http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/DiagnosticKeys/TomWlt/TomWiltKey.html

though you might instead have a nutritional problem; and I don't know what diseases are common where you are -- which presumably isn't New York State, if you've got tomatoes out in the field at this time of year.

Or, if you have a determinate variety, they might just be about done. Indeterminates keep growing, and producing, until the weather or something else clobbers them. Determinates grow until they set their crop, then they give out. Did you mean five months from seed, or from transplant? [ETA: whoops, sorry, I see you said from seed] though an early determinate variety might be done in any case.

[Róisín]

What thorny said! And yeah, ants generally are not a problem, but some of their livestock can be. Ants actually herd, protect and ‘milk’ some kinds of aphids, leaf hoppers and other sapsucking insects, which eat the sap of your plants and produce a sweet substance called honeydew which ants like. Honeydew plus leaf damage also opens a path for fungal diseases, which further damage the plants. And please don’t spray at least until you know what the problem is, because that will also kill ladybirds and lacewings who eat a lot of pests, as well as killing bees. And if you water in the evening, water the roots rather than the leaves, however nice the watered leaves smell!

[yeethaw_gang]

I've just confirmed that my tomatoes are in fact, not Romas. I do believe they are indeterminate.

Also: The spraying was for caterpillars (we don't ever get ladybugs in our garden), just a general (organic, I think) pesticide in a spray bottle. I've been getting quite a few. They're bright green, and that's all I know of them, because I refuse to get closer. Bugs terrify me.

Oh! I owe a lot of thanks to thorny! I think my tomatoes have Gray Leaf Spot. I will confirm once I get home. I live in Perth, WA.

EDIT: Yep, Gray leaf! Thanks for all the advice everyone!

[thorny]

Bugs terrify me.

Gardening may get you over that.   

Most "bugs" you might see in a garden are either beneficials or neutrals. Some of them are utterly essential for pollination of some crops, and many of them are eating the bugs you actually don't want.

If you sprayed an organically-permissible insecticide aimed at caterpillars, it's probably BT, which is unlikely to do anything to either ants or aphids; though again ants in themselves aren't a problem. It may or may not finish off the caterpillars, depending on growth stage; but it won't do it immediately.

Please, always read the label on any pesticide (that includes fungicides and herbicides as well as insecticides and miticides) before using, use only according to directions, use only if it'll actually work on the problem you've got, and use only if you've actually got a problem. That's actually legally required. One thing that both organic and conventional growers/advisors agree on is that misuse can cause all sorts of problems.

(Are your caterpillars tomato hornworm, by the way?
http://putnam.cce.cornell.edu/resources/tomato-hornworm
They are kind of scary looking; but aside from their looks don't bother humans.)

[yeethaw_gang]

The caterpillars are not hornworms. I think they may be these: http://lepidoptera.butterflyhouse.com.au/geom/metarhodata.html

[Róisín]

Ah, loopers. Those are a pest. If there are too many in my garden I feed them to the poultry.