This is my first year trying my hand at any sort of gardening, and so I am at a loss as to what's happening to my tomatoes.
1.) My Early Girls have leaves that are folding in half. Not curling, per se, they just literally look as if someone was trying to fold them up like a book.
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They're in a terraced area, where I mixed some Miracle Grow garden soil with our natural very clay soil, and some Kellogg Amend. There are some fruits, but overall, the plants aren't looking nearly as good as I've seen in the tomato gallery here.
2.) These 2 Sweet 100 plants are looking absolutely awful. They're scrawny, scraggly, and their leaves are tiny. There are a few trusses of fruit, but it looks like the plants are slowly dying off. Every couple days, I have to go out and snip off leaves and branches that have turned yellow. I have spotted some small, winged insects on the plants, that look something like gnats, but with longer bodies and longer wings. When I shake or move the plants, or even touch the insects, they don't move, which leads me to believe that they have some kind of sucker that they're using to suck the life out of my babies. You can see how small the leaves are by using the tomatoes as reference. They're about the same size, and Sweet 100 tomatoes are small!
Any idea what it could be, or if/how I can save these plants?
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3.) Here's my Granny Smith, and it's suffering from the same bug issue as my Sweet 100's. I've also noticed a few "webs", which I've read up about and sound kind of like a spider mite issue. Also, I'm wondering if this plant looks normal.... I've seen healthy looking plants, and I've seen mine, and they don't necessarily match up. However, the nursery where I obtained several of my plants has several demonstration potted tomatoes, and although older and therefore bushier than mine, the foliage looks about the same... not super green and glossy, but not horrible either.
I think you can actually sort of see one of the flying insects nestled in the leaf directly in front of the tomato. Sorry if it's a little "Where's Waldo", but it's the best I could do, since I went around squashing all the rest of the bugs this afternoon. There were maybe 15 on the Granny Smith, and 5-10 on the Sweet 100's. There were also some small, red and black (on different bugs - not bugs that are both red and black)... well, mite-y looking things, but only a few.
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4.) My zucchini plants have been doing relatively well, since they've more than quadrupled since transplanting them at the end of May, but there are a few leaves that have turned yellow, and then brown and crispy on the edges. Is it going to be harmful to the plants? Is it transplant shock?
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Also, just for good measure, does this look like I may be getting a female blossom? :D I have no males yet, so it'll never get pollinated :(, but if it IS a blossom, I'll still be exceedingly excited!
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5.) I recently bought and planted a lemon balm plant. It was looking good, but the leaves are starting to do this:
{{gwi:79586}}Any idea what's making them look coppery like this? Is this transplant shock? Other than the several leaves that look like this, the plant looks very healthy, but I don't want there to be a bigger problem that gets too far along to stop.
Here's a link to my Photobucket account, where I've got a lot of the problems I'm finding in my garden kind of briefly described amongst all the photos. I need all the help I can get, so any advice you all may have would be greatly appreciated.
http://s712.photobucket.com/albums/ww130/spaghetina/
Thanks in advance!
Here is a link that might be useful: Spaghetina's Photobucket - Please come take a look because I need all the advice I can get on these sickly plants. :(
midsummersgarden
digdirt2
spaghetinaOriginal Author