help fix over-nitrogen'ed buckets
 

Hi:

90% sure half my tomato plants got too much nitrogen.

What should I do?
1. Nothing, let it go and hope they outgrow the over-nitrogen
2. Toss the tomatoes and try replacing with something from nursery
3. Dig out the espoma tomato tone fertilizer ring, and "flush" the container mix a couple times
4. Dig out the tomato, replace the container mix, put tomato back in
5. DIg out the tomato, bare root it, and replace the container mix with fresh mix, put tomato back in, leaving out the tomato tone
6. Something else???


Here's the background:

Third year trying to grow. Late start. Transplanted very healthy seedlings last week from 4" pots to 5 gallon buckets last week.
Rain gutter self-watering setup.

Container mix: 3 parts sunshine #4 mix**, 2 parts bark fines, 1 part perlite, 1/2 part composted steer manure, and 1.5 cups espoma garden lime. After seedling planted into this, top inch mix removed, a ring of 2-3 cups espoma tomato tone poured around edge, and dirt replaced. All buckets top-down watered once, and only half tomatoes were top-down watered a second time mid-week as they looked a little lacking for water and the mix didn't seem to be wicking effectively for some reason yet.

** alternative to promix currently available locally

Everything looked great only 4 days in and then I noticed new growth of the second-top-down watered tomatoes coming out curly, exactly like too much nitrogen. They even have flowers starting to come out only a week in and they are twisting up too, uggghhh! I honestly thought the organic tomato tone would be a lot slower acting, and the nitrogen is fairly low here to begin with. :x
I can provide pictures later if necessary.

Last year I grew some tomatoes in double-bucket system, which is similar to this rain gutter setup. Soil mix was nearly exactly the same, except there was no composted manure and only 1-2 cups of fertilizer. Had no issues, other than the tomatoes were very slow to start growing and tasted rather bland.


Thanks for your time to help me fix this.

[QUOTE]Soil mix was nearly exactly the same, except there was no composted manure[/QUOTE]


What was your source for this?
New growth coming out curly sounds to me like the effects of herbicide.
Even composted cow manure can be a source for this if the cows grazed on land sprayed with 2-4D to keep down weed growth in pasture.


I have never encountered plants with "too much nitrogen", so I can't really speak to the impact of that.

However, I do agree with your assessment that the nitrogen in tomato tone would be a much slower release (and harder to over supply) to cause this effect.

This is why I would lean towards the herbicide in the steer manure as the root cause.


Can you replant a couple of the worst looking plants in alternate pots without the steer manure? After a week or two, you should notice a difference in the new growth.


Best of luck!


Lee

I appreciate the response,m thank you!


I figured someone might bring up herbicide damage, but I didn't address it to try to keep my post short.



While it's possible this could be herbicide damage, understand this has happened to me twice before, each past year growing. First year in growbags with 5-1-1 mix where I kept spraying too much dynagro foliage pro, and second year in the ground where I didn't do a good job raking bloom meal and there was a large clump by the plant. The symptoms have began exactly the same I'm seeing now, except, occurred 2-4 weeks after transplant, and not so quickly. It begins with twisted growth curling under itself, then leads to very thick vegetative growth, no flowers, and eventually does have tomatoes which are very mealy in texture.


My original description should've been a little more detailed, sorry.


Let's assume this is too much nitrogen, rather than herbicide. I can try to repot a couple plants, no big deal. Should I keep the fertilizer ring at top, or skip that as well? Because the mix has pretty much no nutrition otherwise... or put some composted chicken manure in or worm castings or something?

Here's a photo. Not easy to see. The new growth is twisted, thick. In the past when this happened, the plants would grow like mutants, even getting new growth from flowering stems. In looking at this more closely, I see the next node growth just past the twisted leaf stem seems almost normal.. maybe I'll wait a few more days to see how it progresses, and if not much better, I'll swap out the mix for any of the plants that continue to curl and twist up.

I probably have some plants like that right now. They tend to grow out of it as they get larger. But, if they grow too fast you need to look out for blossom end rot.

Balr14: how are the tomatoes from such plants in your experience ? The first year it happened to me, the plant maintained mutant and twisted growth for 4-6 weeks. It had a couple tomatoes, very mealy. When it finally recovered, resulting tomatoes were few and also had poor texture.

I would take a PH reading
same problem here, but I put too many wood ashes in the soil this past winter

I think trying to fix anything will just make it worse. Extra Nitrogen won’t last long in a bucket with a mature tomato plant. I think just water it see how it goes.
KarenO

Somebody once said fresh sawdust/wood chips sucks up nitrogen.

[QUOTE=slugworth;768278]I would take a PH reading
same problem here, but I put too many wood ashes in the soil this past winter[/QUOTE]
7.2. A wee bit high, but I don't think it's the cause, thanks for the idea nonetheless!



[QUOTE=KarenO;768279]I think trying to fix anything will just make it worse. Extra Nitrogen won’t last long in a bucket with a mature tomato plant. I think just water it see how it goes.
KarenO[/QUOTE]
I hope you are right, I will listen to you this time :) When this happened first two years ago, it took 4-6 weeks (maybe even 8, I don't remember) for the plant to return to normal, and even then, the fruit had poor texture. That was a grow bag, and I was watering daily, but I think the issue was that the mixture was channeling water so water wasn't getting where it should've been going to flush out the nitrogen. This time, they are in buckets. But, I'm letting it water from bottom up now, rather than top down, I think that's what caused this issue. Some leaves in a couple plants are beginning to look normal I hope. The taiga however, which is what I'm most looking forward to, looks a bit different now.. leaves are okay, but they are a bit droppy and the edge of them are curling inwards. I'm guessing I may have water-logged that mix early on, maybe I should drill holes in the side of the bucket to let it air out a bit (there are drainage holes in the bottom).


If this year turns out to be a bust, that'll be 3 years in a row.. maybe I should throw in the towel and wait until I have a house with an actual yard.

tomatoes love ph 6.0
I just used some dusting sulphur myself left over from the good old do it yourself 4th of july fun days.

I have this stuff: [URL]https://www.espoma.com/product/soil-acidifier/[/URL]
The instructions says 1T per 4" diameter. I'd have to add 3T since the 5 gal buckets are about 12" across, then dig that into the top soil and water it.. but I don't want to water as I think that flushed the organic fertilizer ring and caused this in the first place. So.. if it just scratched in, will it slowly reduce the pH of the soil, similar to how the fertilizer gets slowly absorbed over time through wicking?

Remember, I am doing a variation of sub irrigated watering, using buckets sat atop gutters.



Or maybe I dissolvesome into the gutter and let the plants wick it up? Not sure how much though, hmmm.


I kind of feel like I shouldn't do this. Maybe I'll test with one of the buckets where I have a tomato duplicate.

[QUOTE=paradajky;768272]Balr14: how are the tomatoes from such plants in your experience ? The first year it happened to me, the plant maintained mutant and twisted growth for 4-6 weeks. It had a couple tomatoes, very mealy. When it finally recovered, resulting tomatoes were few and also had poor texture.[/QUOTE]

I think every plant reacts to this condition differently, depending on weather and other environment variables. Prolonged recovery could result in poor yield. But, I have never had a bad tomato, except for some strange shapes.

Waterlogging the mix can help in this situation provided that the right bacterial are present. If they are they will convert the nitrogen from fertilizer for into gas, but it needs to be done carefully so that you don't cause other issues.

A couple days ago, I dug some of the espoma soil acidifier between the fertilizer ring and stalk, being careful of roots, then watered them just to get it started. Tried to get down to mid-level bucket. I did this to the duplicate plants only and was careful not to water the fertilizer ring. So far they actually seem a little better than the ones that did not get it.



When I got to the maglia rosa, I noticed it has roots growing upward to the fertilizer ring, and it is just beginning to show signs of stem curling.



Depending how everything goes this year, I think next year I will not do fertilizer ring/strip, and instead, just mix in fertilizer and supplement as necessary.

Also, these plants are supposed to be single-vine and trained to strings, but I'm leaving suckers and forks for now in hopes it'll help eat up excess nitrogen faster.

I do the same.

Our New Virginia Governor has put forward many Programs with the Funding for me to help Farmers like you, from my Native American farming secrets. But that funding is not for my City of Hampton farmers like me, who use Extraordinary Skills to Farm in a City. Maybe a Virginia Farmer will see this Post and Invite me to be a part of them to get the funding as I need help without the money for Staff. I would have to made sure Native Americans would not mine giving away they farming secrets. But putting their Clinmet changes ways of Organic farming will be safe under our New Governor new programs that he backed-up with the needed funding. This Bill have Native
Americans Farmers all over it. Someone in Hampton will help me starting Monday that is a Blessing. If I was you for next year: you need to lat your land rest where you used all that Fertilizer and relocate your garden and have your dirt tested.

[QUOTE=paradajky;768284]7.2. A wee bit high, but I don't think it's the cause, thanks for the idea nonetheless!

“ this time”
:)
I think maybe you are overthinking and over correcting problems that may not really be problems. :
Taiga is a droopy potato leaf heart the leaves sometimes form almost spirals.
Just let things grow is my advice.
It’s just the middle of June.
KarenO


I hope you are right, I will listen to you this time :) When this happened first two years ago, it took 4-6 weeks (maybe even 8, I don't remember) for the plant to return to normal, and even then, the fruit had poor texture. That was a grow bag, and I was watering daily, but I think the issue was that the mixture was channeling water so water wasn't getting where it should've been going to flush out the nitrogen. This time, they are in buckets. But, I'm letting it water from bottom up now, rather than top down, I think that's what caused this issue. Some leaves in a couple plants are beginning to look normal I hope. The taiga however, which is what I'm most looking forward to, looks a bit different now.. leaves are okay, but they are a bit droppy and the edge of them are curling inwards. I'm guessing I may have water-logged that mix early on, maybe I should drill holes in the side of the bucket to let it air out a bit (there are drainage holes in the bottom).


If this year turns out to be a bust, that'll be 3 years in a row.. maybe I should throw in the towel and wait until I have a house with an actual yard.[/QUOTE]

My advice is to just let the plant grow. Tomato plants aren’t computer programs that you change the inputs and quickly get different outputs. They’re alive and adaptive, and also sensitive to changes in their environment.

Continuing to adjust fertilizer levels and pH is a recipe for disaster, especially if you aren’t able to precisely measure what those levels are. Gathering all the knowledge about growing tomatoes is hard. Gaining the patience required is even harder.

What ever you decide to do: It's always good to let a family member learn of your problems if you decide to eat these tomatoes the plants produces. Please us plenty of water to wash as much of your Chemicals away every day. Your plant will tell you if it safe to eat. By cutting away the affected areas seeing the new replacements growing regularly without any problems should be a good sign.

[quote=KarenO;768341]I think maybe you are overthinking and over correcting problems that may not really be problems. :
Taiga is a droopy potato leaf heart the leaves sometimes form almost spirals. [/quote]Oh, thank you for that regarding Taiga! I repotted my second, [URL="http://tomatoville.com/showpost.php?p=768240&postcount=15"]trooper plant which I accidentally beheaded a while back[/URL], and it is looking similar to Taiga. I don't think this one is hit with the excess nitrogen symptoms.

In response to

[QUOTE=dshreter;768342]My advice is to just let the plant grow. (snip)
Continuing to adjust fertilizer levels and pH is a recipe for disaster, especially if you aren’t able to precisely measure what those levels are. Gathering all the knowledge about growing tomatoes is hard. Gaining the patience required is even harder.[/QUOTE]

and

[quote=KarenO;768341]Just let things grow is my advice.
It’s just the middle of June.[/quote]

It's really tough not to have a strong reaction to try to fix things quickly primarily because this has already happened to me before and waiting didn't make things better, and second, yes it's just june but I have limited time for sun given my circumstances - my neighbor's house will begin blocking the afternoon sun sometime in August as its trajectory changes into the second half of the year. This means I'm just barely going to get some tomatoes to enjoy. This is partly my fault having begun so late. This ultimately becomes a proof of concept for me and another lesson, to determine whether it makes sense to try again next year.

Working with the plants is a lot like navigating a big, slow boat. The results aren't immediate, and you have to kind of work with the flow.

I let things progress two years ago to see what would happen, and, it took 6 weeks or so to fix, and then the tomatoes weren't very good (mealy, some BER, low production, etc). 6 weeks puts me into August. :(

Attached pictures for laughs.. Start F1 tomato has begun exhibiting the leaf-stem curl now, previously it was one which I hadn't top-watered, so I'm guessing the roots have hit the tomato-tone fertilizer ring. Second photo is a more extreme result from Marzano Fire, probably due to its whispy nature. This one is sadly the most impacted of the bunch. The others are more mild now, thankfully.

Third image shows the limited space I'm working in for perspective, just put up the trellis, too :) I really ought to only be growing one or two determinate tomato plants, not 3 dozen tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and eggplants hah.

The good news, I think some are beginning to show better. It's probably too late to try to repot them now and I'm getting lazy so at this point, I'll come back with an update in a few weeks hopefully positive :) For now, I have battle to do with hornworms, picked 8 of them last night and found 15 more eggs this morning wtf.

Thanks again for the help and advices!

[QUOTE=paradajky;768352]Oh, thank you for that regarding Taiga! I repotted my second, [URL="http://tomatoville.com/showpost.php?p=768240&postcount=15"]trooper plant which I accidentally beheaded a while back[/URL], and it is looking similar to Taiga. I don't think this one is hit with the excess nitrogen symptoms.

In response to



and



It's really tough not to have a strong reaction to try to fix things quickly primarily because this has already happened to me before and waiting didn't make things better, and second, yes it's just june but I have limited time for sun given my circumstances - my neighbor's house will begin blocking the afternoon sun sometime in August as its trajectory changes into the second half of the year. This means I'm just barely going to get some tomatoes to enjoy. This is partly my fault having begun so late. This ultimately becomes a proof of concept for me and another lesson, to determine whether it makes sense to try again next year.

Working with the plants is a lot like navigating a big, slow boat. The results aren't immediate, and you have to kind of work with the flow.

I let things progress two years ago to see what would happen, and, it took 6 weeks or so to fix, and then the tomatoes weren't very good (mealy, some BER, low production, etc). 6 weeks puts me into August. :(

Attached pictures for laughs.. Start F1 tomato has begun exhibiting the leaf-stem curl now, previously it was one which I hadn't top-watered, so I'm guessing the roots have hit the tomato-tone fertilizer ring. Second photo is a more extreme result from Marzano Fire, probably due to its whispy nature. This one is sadly the most impacted of the bunch. The others are more mild now, thankfully.

Third image shows the limited space I'm working in for perspective, just put up the trellis, too :) I really ought to only be growing one or two determinate tomato plants, not 3 dozen tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and eggplants hah.

The good news, I think some are beginning to show better. It's probably too late to try to repot them now and I'm getting lazy so at this point, I'll come back with an update in a few weeks hopefully positive :) For now, I have battle to do with hornworms, picked 8 of them last night and found 15 more eggs this morning wtf.

Thanks again for the help and advices![/QUOTE]

You have very good Pictures. I pray that my opinion of you telling a family member did not alert you or make you sad, or upset. Amen!! This communication fto a Caregivers is so important, It was put in a Bill in Congress.

Tomato Plants is the only plants that can be Transferred or Transplanted with no dirt on the roots system in most all cases. In Emergency situation, you can also soak your plant in water for 30 minutes before transplanting them. Since I am a Organic Farmer, please try some of my Ideals before pulling or destroying your Tomato plants. You can also get your soil Tested as well. Everyone is somewhere else and I hope I did not hurt anyone feeling. My Husband and I are very Nice People, and we Love Everyone; even if we have to forgive them everyday. :yes::roll::cute:

Incoming long post :p

I'm now back after a little over 1 week away. I spent down-time during travel researching this on the internet, and propose the following:
1. With certainty, the plants are stressed
2. Most likely issue: too much nitrogen
3. Less likely issue: medium is too water logged
4. Less likely issue: herbicide damage (i.e. "auxin")
5. Ruled out: curly top disease (all plants alive, not dead)

The good news, I seem to have many tomatoes, many blooms, no blossom drop, and no BER (yet).

Going to continue to update this thread as nothing more than future info for anyone who stumbles into this thread later. FWIW, I don't think there's a way to fix the situation at this point without a lot of work, which I don't have time for (e.g. bare-root the plants, etc). In retrospect, I probably should've quickly bare-rooted the plants, tossed the upper portion with fertilizer, and skipped the lowe's aged/composted steer manure. It's possible the ground cover bark or the sunshine #4 moss had some lingering herbicide, as they were not listed organic/omri.

Current status:
- twisting of new branches/leaves/stems continues
- a couple show extreme twisting at terminal point
- mature leaves unwind, and mostly point down
- thick, vigorous vine growth
- plenty of blooms
- many early nubby tomatoes, no signs of BER (yet?)

Here's the official 2022 planting history from my notes:
- seeds planted April 18, 2022 into 100% natural granulated DE medium
- transplanted May 14 into 4" pots with Sunshine #4 mix (lowe's version of promix)
- transplanted June 4 to final 5 gallon buckets that is made of 3 parts sunshine #4, 2 parts Gardener's/Kellog brand groundcover bark, 1 part perlite, 1/2 part aged steer manure from lowe's, 1.5 cups espoma dolomite lime (omri), and ring of 3-4 cups espoma tomato tone (omri) put near top, and buckets set onto rain-gutter grow system (variation of a SIP, self watering container, etc)
- June 20, I dug in 1/4cup espoma acidifier (sulpher) to half the plants (the duplicates of what I'm growing) as a test

Quick history:

The mix is based on Raybo's earthtainer measured to 5 gallon buckets. In 2021, I used that exact mix, with no steer manure. The plants struggled, and I had to supplement with fast-acting fertilizer. After watching several Larry Hall videos, I decided to add the steer manure (it's aged/composted according to the bag) and increase the fertilizer by one cup. In research, I have discovered the earthbox folks don't recommend using manure, as it may interfere with wicking component.

I first tried growing tomatoes in 2020, after spending time in 2019 researching, sewing some bags from weed barrier cloth to fit into some painfully holed buckets. These tomatoes grew well, but several of them exhibited similar characteristics I'm seeing now: thick vines, twisted flush growth. Other signed included mustant growth (stems forming from flowers, and flower forming at stem ends), few blooms, blossom drop, 50% BER, and mealy textured fruit. I actually think part of the problem in 2020 was the result of my medium of choice (3-1-1 bark, peat, perlite), which dried out quickly in the small 4-5 gallon buckets that were lined with weed barrier cloth, and that ultimately led to channeling and so insufficient/poor watering.

2021 was a disaster year for me, nothing at my house grew more than 1-2 ft tall and died. The above mentioned buckets of 2021 were done at family's house as an experiment.


Back to 2022. At final transplant June 4th, the seedlings were 4-6" tall. Today, 3.5 weeks later, they are about 2.5 ft tall, with very thick vines for such a young age.

The research leads me to believe the plants are exhibiting extreme "epinasty", which is caused by stress of sorts. [URL="https://www.houzz.com/discussions/2207386/what-causes-a-tomato-stem-to-curl-like-a-pigs-tail-pics"]According to a WG/houzz posting, epinasty[/URL] is caused by plant stress. Symptoms include twisted stems that grow out to point downward. I found multiple other people on the internet posting to places like reddit, having similar symptoms, if one searches for "tomato epinasty" or "twisted tomatoes".

Stress can be induced by herbicide. This is often the first thing anyone suggests, as apparently, tomatoes are highly sensitive to herbicide, even a trace amount sprayed by a neighbor that gets blown by can impact the plant. However, from what I've read, the plants might not recover, and the growth ends up very poor. That's not happening here, so I'm tempted to rule this out, but not quite yet.

Another cause of stress may be water logged soil, which leads to excessive ethylene gas, which results in twisted growth. Certainly possible, given the high-peat based medium, and the self-watering system. I measured this with my moisture meter, and get strange results.. some buckets show dry, others show wet, and a couple show moist. No correlation between intensity of twisting. Additionally, if this were the case, then I would think we'd see a lot more people having this kind of issue who grow in containers with a thick medium like peat.

Too much nitrogen [URL="https://extension.msstate.edu/content/what-causes-tomatoes-become-mealy-or-soft"]can also cause stress and similar sypmtoms, according to U Missouri[/URL]. In fact, the description matches exactly what I experienced in 2020. "The most likely causes are nitrogen being too high and potassium being too low. Nitrogen should be in the range of 4 to 5.5% in the leaf tissue. High nitrogen will also cause missed flower clusters (flower abortion), vegetative shoots at the ends of flower clusters, and a curling under or "balling up" of the tops of plants." In this case, I'm seeing the curling, but so far, no bloom drop and it'll be another 4-6 weeks before any tomatoes are ripe to tell how the texture is. I can try to take a sample from some buckets and send in for a soil test.. it costs $75 to do it, but I'm not sure how to get the soil, how deep to go in the bucket, and how not to destroy roots in the process. I may leave this for the end, to see whether I should reuse this soil next year. [URL="https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/comments/23snrq/please_help_curling_tomato_branches/"]This post here on reddit [/URL]is pretty clear to the excessive fertilization issue, and similar to what I experienced in 2021.

What I wonder is whether other forms of stress can cause such growth? My plants are in the area that gets most sun, and, there are glass railings at the patios above which reflect down and cause strong sunlight pockets for a couple hours mid-day. The plants do "wilt" during this time, and seem to show the curling worst in the afternoon, while early morning they appear much healthier and on the road to recovery. Note, I cannot move the tomatoes from this place.

That's what I've got now. I've got more pictures, but have to get to work, will upload later. For purposes of documentation and in the hopes it helps someone in the future, I'll update this thread as anything interesting develops.

Two more observations I forgot to bring up in the long post:
- prior flower sets were showing up every 3rd leaf branch, a couple were after ever 2nd
- some flowers had extra leaf growth from the stem (see photo)

On July 3rd and this last weekend, I top watered with half-dilution Agrothrive fruit and flower. Today, 7/11, now 5 weeks past transplant, the tomato plants appear to be overcoming the issue, and a few tomatoes have become shiny, which means color change and ripeness, woohoo! There has been some blossom drop, mostly on Amalfi, followed by Benevento, fortunately, nothing else. No BER. Flower sets now appear after every one or two branches. Yay! I really hope those first fruits have good texture and not mealy.

Plants are approaching 4ft, near the top of my trellis system. I'm a little worried whether lower-n-lean is going to work given how thick the lower vines are, not flexible at all. Eeep, gonna be a mess. Any tips?

Some good and bad news, now 7 weeks out.

[LIST][*] some BER on a few of the tomatoes, picture shown is worst of the bunch, others are less impacted[/LIST][LIST][*]the Benevento and Amalfi Orange tomatoes have a lot of blossom drop, and no tomatoes beyond the first flower tier. The first flower tier tomatoes are large and looking great so far, and if the latest blooms drop I am considering just topping these and taking them out to make space (and will try again next year, correcting the soil mistakes)[*] my first tomato to begin color change is maglia rosa! 49 days from potting :)[*]several of the maglia rosa fruits in this setup appear to be much larger than [URL="http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=30721"]what I see in the pictures of its thread here[/URL]; the ones growing on my patio (not pictured) are closer to what I see in the thread - taiga has not had any blossom drop and continues to set fruit; the first fruit is giant and I think it was due to a fused blossom[/LIST]
My conclusion is now leaning towards what was earlier concluded by others more knowledgeable, the steer manure is to blame, and not my fertilizer ring.

Wrap up for anyone interested: the tomatoes were good in August, but sadly the plants were hit with horrible powdery mildew and I had to cut them out early september. Despite having wonderful temperature for so many months, my environment really only gives me about a month window of tomatoes.


Now I need to figure out whether I can reuse the soil in these containers. Two things against reusing: first, the whole mess-up with the steer manure and over-nitrogened growth, and second, the super bad powdery mildew. While it'd be easy to say, "start from scratch", the disposal of the dirt would be very tricky (I can't just throw it in the garden, I have no space, and it would take several weeks to just toss in the garbage given weight) and then having to remix another yard of mix is not something i'm looking forward to - especially that I have to carry it all down a flight of stairs.



I've read up on dealing with fungus, mildew, etc on this forum and there's just way too much info and hard to figure out a system. I was alternating sprays with neem oil and potassium carbonate. These worked okay in July but were not enough once the weather and humidity really picked up in August.


All tbd for next season. Maybe I should concentrate on what seems to work - eggplant and peppers. I would really love to have a solid, 2-4 month crop of tomatoes but that may not be possible ugh.

I would replace the soil. I prefer to use Miracle Grow or Fox Farm Ocean Forest potting soil mixes. They are expensive, but they are always clean and evenly mixed and ALL plants do well, not just tomatoes. If the plants stay healthy, I will reuse this soil for 2 additional years, adding Milorganite to it.

I'd rather pay for good soil and have a good growing season with no worries. It seems every time I tried to use cheaper soil or mix my own from my dirt pile, I end up with lower yields or some form of disease.

I always add some calcium pellets to my containers to prevent BER. I also like to add earthworms, a few per container.

I'm sure there are many people in these forums who know far more than I do about soil mixes and preparation. But, it's hard to beat the higher priced mixes if you are a dummy like me.

The neighbors I have given the same advice to have all had much greater success than what they were used to doing before. Some go as far as buying new MiracleGrow soil every year for tomatoes.

That's a great idea for a few pots, but not when we're talking 30+ buckets unless one can find major discounts.

2023 season in my suburbian rain gutter bucket garden is off to a much better start! Some new observations makes me reconsider the conclusions drawn last year.
Timing was similar to last year as in post #24 above, with seeds planted mid-april, ultimately put into buckets early June. I did not dump the bucket soil, instead, refreshed it with about 10-20% mixture of Sunshine #4 (lowe's promix equivalent), a little kellogg garden soil, 1/2 cup espoma garden tone, 1/2 cup dolomite lime. two weeks in I added 1/4 cup espoma soil acidifier and mulched with kellogg gromulch. I did not make a fertilizer ring/strip this time.

About two weeks into planting, my HOA's mow and blow squad sprayed green stuff all over the sidewalks, and on questioning, this was herbicide. Hmmm. My bucket garden is below street level, between houses.

We've had least amount of sun this spring/summer since I can remember, overcast daily, almost all day. Maybe 1-2 weeks total sunlight since May. WTF California?!

This year I'm growing maglia rosa, kenneth's piennolo, marzano fire, taiga, and a few dwarf varieties (saucy mary, kokaboora cackle, and metallica).


[B]Observations:[/B]
Vine growth has been fairly vigorous, most plants are nearing 2ft height after only 4 weeks in the buckets. Not as much crazy vigor/mutant growth as 2020 and last year (2022). Way more flowers, and so far no blossom drops. The very first blooms to develop on nearly all the tomatoes were fused mega blooms. Kennth's piennolo was first to set fruit 2 weeks after transplant, and Karen O's Taiga was next at 3 weeks. No leaf curling or other oddities noticed early on.

24 hours after the HOA squad's herbicide, the thinner and wispier tomatoes (marzano fire and ken's piennolo in particular) demonstrated curling, twisting, and odd growth. All the dwarf varieties began scrunching their new leaves. HUH. Interesting correlation.

2.5 weeks now after the HOA spraying (total 4.5 weeks since transplant to buckets), everything looks to be returning to normal. I have many flowers, and instead of ever 3rd leaf growth they are following almost after every new leaf. No pics this time, my camera having focus issues for some reason.



[B]Theory:[/B]

I'm revising my theory a bit as to what's going on, but will hold off making conclusions until later in the season. I'm trying to curb my enthusiasm to keep from being disappointed, though so far things are best they've been since I started in 2020.