Veg End of season tomato question - problem

[Coulter]

I have several 5ft tall tomato plants that have several ripe tomatoes on them - but 99% of the leaves are dead.

The few leaves that are on them look ok.

A few of the plants are dead - have pulled them - not sure if the above will be dead in a couple of weeks or not.

Are these tomatoes good?

Would you can them?

Thanks

 

[duchess47]

Yes I would.

 

[FireDance]

Yes, or either freeze them if not many. Sigh. Winter is coming.

 

[summerthyme]

TASTE THEM FIRST! If the plants have died from frost, the fruit is probably fine. However, if they died from some disease, the fruit may be funky. No sense in spending the time and efforts to process them if you won't like the end result. But if one or two taste fine... go for it.

Summerthyme

 

[Coulter]

TASTE THEM FIRST! If the plants have died from frost, the fruit is probably fine. However, if they died from some disease, the fruit may be funky. No sense in spending the time and efforts to process them if you won't like the end result. But if one or two taste fine... go for it.

Summerthyme

Thanks

Ok - they did not die from frost - my tomato leaves die from the bottom up till they eventually reach the top - about this time of year. Kansas

Canned 50 quarters but let at least 30 gallons go bad that I couldn't get to in time.

They were very productive this year.

80 plants

 

[summerthyme]

EIGHTY PLANTS! Good grief... we planted 24 and are absolutely inundated. I average between 1/2 and 3/4 bushel per plant in an average year... this year ended up being over a bushel per plant.

It sounds like some sort of blight killed the plants... do you see any type lesion on any if the fruit? Late blight does a real number on fruit in humid conditions. We were fortunate this year that a combination of excellent dry weather and hubby spraying copper kept blight away until about a week ago. So the plants are now dying, but the fruit has been about 95% perfect.

A taste test is the simplest way to be sure.

Summerthyme

 

[Chicken Mama]

Last year I had an abundance of tomatoes there wasn't time to process so I rinsed and put them in the freezer whole. Took them out a couple months later, let them thaw in the sink, and used them to make sauce. Skins slid off easily, and they were fine.

 

[FireDance]

EIGHTY PLANTS! Good grief... we planted 24 and are absolutely inundated. I average between 1/2 and 3/4 bushel per plant in an average year... this year ended up being over a bushel per plant.

It sounds like some sort of blight killed the plants... do you see any type lesion on any if the fruit? Late blight does a real number on fruit in humid conditions. We were fortunate this year that a combination of excellent dry weather and hubby spraying copper kept blight away until about a week ago. So the plants are now dying, but the fruit has been about 95% perfect.

A taste test is the simplest way to be sure.

Summerthyme

Off topic: how/when do you spray the copper? I have tomatoes and peppers that appear to have anemic leaves (very light green to yellow). I had some copper from my old greenhouse and WONDERED if that would solve my problem. However, I have never used it. Although I CAN google it, I trust your information much more.

We are still harvesting fruit right now, so I’m there. I wondered if it would be better to wait until we are getting little to no fruit (and we are slowly down a lot). The days are definitely getting shorter. Blast it.

These plants are also in containers which makes everything a wee more tricky to me.

Oddly, no more worms hanging around. I don’t know. I take a pair of scissors to the plants and cut off any weirdness every day. My tomatoes look like butchered - well, pretty ugly.

If you get a minute to give hints, that’s great. But don’t worry about it if you don’t. All my copper is in a marked jar - no other labeling. lol

 

[summerthyme]

Those "anemic" leaves may be just that! We use a wettable copper powder or a liquid (commercial products) for fungal diseases. Tomatoes and potatoes get sprayed weekly unless we're having extremely dry weather. We just soak the plant leaf surfaces as thoroughly as possible. AFAIK, there is no withdrawal period before picking fruit.

There are products which provide iron in a foliage spray. It's also possible they need nitrogen. I'd probably start with something like Miracle Gro as a foliar spray.

Here's some info on iron deficiency in plants...

Leaf Chlorosis And Iron For Plants: What Does Iron Do For Plants

Iron chlorosis affects many kinds of plants and can be frustrating for a gardener. An iron deficiency in plants causes unsightly yellow leaves and eventually death. Get more info from this article.

www.gardeningknowhow.com

Amazon has liquid iron fertilizers.

If you have copper sulfate powder, the recipe for spray is 4 teaspoons per gallon.

But I'm betting more on a nitrogen or iron deficiency based on your description...

Summerthyme

 

[FireDance]

Those "anemic" leaves may be just that! We use a wearable copper powder or a liquid (commercial products) for fungal diseases. Tomatoes and potatoes get sprayed weekly unless we're having extremely dry weather. We just soak the plant leaf surfaces as thoroughly as possible. AFAIK, there is no withdrawal period before picking fruit.

There are products which provide iron in a foliage spray. It's also possible they need nitrogen. I'd probably start with something like Miracle Gro as a foliar spray.

Here's some info on iron deficiency in plants...

Leaf Chlorosis And Iron For Plants: What Does Iron Do For Plants

Iron chlorosis affects many kinds of plants and can be frustrating for a gardener. An iron deficiency in plants causes unsightly yellow leaves and eventually death. Get more info from this article.

www.gardeningknowhow.com

Amazon has liquid iron fertilizers.

If you have copper sulfate powder, the recipe for spray is 4 teaspoons per gallon.

But I'm betting more on a nitrogen or iron deficiency based on your description...

Summerthyme

THANK YOU!! lol I’m going to miracle grow first and see. BUT since they are in containers it could be compacted overly wet problem. Miracle grow won’t hurt on the leaves, that’s for sure!

 

[Coulter]

EIGHTY PLANTS! Good grief... we planted 24 and are absolutely inundated. I average between 1/2 and 3/4 bushel per plant in an average year... this year ended up being over a bushel per plant.

It sounds like some sort of blight killed the plants... do you see any type lesion on any if the fruit? Late blight does a real number on fruit in humid conditions. We were fortunate this year that a combination of excellent dry weather and hubby spraying copper kept blight away until about a week ago. So the plants are now dying, but the fruit has been about 95% perfect.

A taste test is the simplest way to be sure.

Summerthyme

Not sure exactly what a tomato lesion is but I looked it up via images and did see a couple that looked like what I have - on the leaves mainly - a few tomatoes have something on them but not many. A few years ago I showed the leaves to a plant guy and can't remember what he called it - they had a spray for it - and then said to pick all the infected leaves - to slow it down. Spread by water. But I couldn't tell any difference in it's spread with those I tried to take care of and those I didn't. But picking off 200 leaves off of 80 plants is not worth it to me. I just over plant and it never becomes much a problem till end of season anyway.

I did sample a few tomatoes on the plants that were almost dead for taste - couple tasted off a little (but not really bad) and a couple tasted ok. So I will try to stay away from those that are more infected than the others.

I overhead water mostly and that is the problem I'm sure. But this year I noticed that tomatoes don't seem to need water as much as a lot of other stuff does. An eye opener for me. Started thinking about how much water they really need after my dad said that his dad planted 200 every year and never watered them. If there is a next year I will try hand watering them. At least I will give that a try and see how it turns out. They say not to water watermelons and melons close to harvest for better taste and I'm thinking this might be true of tomatoes as well. I'll see.

This year I planted 3 times as much of everything because of Cov19 and it has about worked me to death. I plant a lot of flowers as well - I'm crazy or so my wife thinks. But she is Polly.

I do rotate where I plant them by a fairly decent distance.

Thanks

 

[FireDance]

Not sure exactly what a tomato lesion is but I looked it up via images and did see a couple that looked like what I have - on the leaves mainly - a few tomatoes have something on them but not many. A few years ago I showed the leaves to a plant guy and can't remember what he called it - they had a spray for it - and then said to pick all the infected leaves - to slow it down. Spread by water. But I couldn't tell any difference in it's spread with those I tried to take care of and those I didn't. But picking off 200 leaves off of 80 plants is not worth it to me. I just over plant and it never becomes much a problem till end of season anyway.

I did sample a few tomatoes on the plants that were almost dead for taste - couple tasted off a little (but not really bad) and a couple tasted ok. So I will try to stay away from those that are more infected than the others.

I overhead water mostly and that is the problem I'm sure. But this year I noticed that tomatoes don't seem to need water as much as a lot of other stuff does. An eye opener for me. Started thinking about how much water they really need after my dad said that his dad planted 200 every year and never watered them. If there is a next year I will try hand watering them. At least I will give that a try and see how it turns out. They say not to water watermelons and melons close to harvest for better taste and I'm thinking this might be true of tomatoes as well. I'll see.

This year I planted 3 times as much of everything because of Cov19 and it has about worked me to death. I plant a lot of flowers as well - I'm crazy or so my wife thinks. But she is Polly.

I do rotate where I plant them by a fairly decent distance.

Thanks

My grandmother always said not to water them too much. Said it made them weak and they would need more water than they really needed. (At least that’s how I understood it at the time.) I’m not exactly sure what she was trying to tell me now. It was only a billion years ago.

But yes, watering from the top is bad juju. Grandmother always put the hose at the base of the plant and let it soak for what seemed like a looong time about once a week. It seemed like a long time to me because I might have been 8/9 at the time. I had things to DO! Lol.

 

[China Connection]

I put some tomato bushed on a pile that I had to burn. 6 to 8 weeks latter I went to burn the heap. The tomatoes were ripe, the plants were very dead but.

 

[EYW]

A few years ago I showed the leaves to a plant guy and can't remember what he called it - they had a spray for it - and then said to pick all the infected leaves - to slow it down.

Powdery mildew?? Just a WAG