Tomatoes with twisted and twisted leaves?
When the gardening fever hits, most people test their tomato skills first. The Garden Writers Association Foundation estimates that more than 41 million American households cultivated a garden in 2009. That’s 38% of households in the US They also estimate that tomatoes are grown in 85% of those gardens.
Among home gardeners, also known as hobby gardeners, tomatoes are a favorite, closely followed by cucumbers and bell peppers. The naive and uninitiated gardener buys a tomato plant in a peat pot at the local department store or retail nursery, digs a hole, fills it with potting soil, fertilizer, and water, then sits back and waits for it to arrive. the bountiful harvest of tomatoes. decorate your kitchen.
Most novice gardeners over-water and fertilize their plants. If a little water is good, then a lot of water is great! High nitrogen fertilizers will make your plants grow fast according to the not-so-experienced salesperson in the big box store. Therefore, the new gardener follows the seller’s instructions and thoroughly waters his tomato plants every day and applies a high-nitrogen fertilizer approximately every week.
At first the results are incredible. The plants grow rapidly and produce deep green leaves. The excited gardening novitiate is satisfied with its results and thinks that “it is not so difficult to grow vegetables.” He promises himself that next year he will plant more … maybe even later this summer, so he can have fall tomatoes.
Then one morning, you go to visit your tomato plants and discover that some of the new, tender leaves are pale yellow starting on the leaf stem and moving up the veins of the new leaves. The store clerk told him that the nitrogen fertilizer would make the leaves “turn green.” So the hobby gardener thinks that if they are yellow they must not be getting enough fertilizer. Mix a batch of Miracle Gro, add more than the recommended amount of fertilizer, and water the tomatoes until the fertilizer-water mixture creates rivulets as it drains from the soil around the plants.
Two days later, he checks his tomatoes again. He’s horrified to find that even more leaves are turning yellow and that the new growth doesn’t even look like leaves. The new growth looks like little slender shoots that are not forming leaves at all. And when the new growth looks like a leaf, it is curled and twisted, reminiscent of what herbicides do to unwanted weeds. Of course, to correct the situation, add more water.
Do you see a pattern forming here? I hope it does, because this is one of the most common experiences for the new tomato grower – overwatering and overfertilizing. If this practice continues, the plants will stunt, produce few or no tomatoes, and expire sooner. The novice gardener will say they have a brown thumb and will never try to garden again.
This gardener’s anguish and the early disappearance of his precious vegetable plants could have easily been avoided by using a soil moisture meter. These devices range in price from five dollars to a couple hundred dollars. Digital versions in the $ 12 to $ 25 range are totally suitable for the hobby gardener. There are several manufacturers and moisture meters are available online or at your local big box store … the same place where you bought your tomato plants in the first place!
The cheapest ones are completely satisfactory and will give a reading of 0.0-10. A low reading (0.0 – 1.5) indicates very dry soil that should be watered immediately. A reading near the upper end of the scale (9.0 – 10) indicates very wet soil that should be allowed to dry significantly before adding more water. Most vegetable plants should be kept in the 2.5 to 5.5 range for optimal growth and production.
Get yourself a moisture meter, avoid the curly and twisted leaves on your tomatoes, and enjoy some of nature’s best homegrown fruits.