Lauren

I'm in the bay area as well. My san marzano plant looks ok. Not the biggest but not the smallest plant either. Mine is about 3 ft tall right now. It was in a not so sunny spot so we thinned the trees to give more sun and it has grown more quickly but still about 1-2 ft shorter than plants in sunnier spot.

My main prob is I have found 3 toms with BER :(

Do you have any pics of your plant. When mine were yellowing it was during that cold week with a lot of rain.

Here is a link that might be useful: san marzano plant and BER pics

AFAIK they don't need anything special and know of no reason why they shouldn't do as well as any other variety in your area. They are grown all over the country.

But we'd need more info to know what might be wrong with it. Any sign of aphids or other pests? Any disease symptoms? Yellowing of leaves often means excessive watering. Possible? In a container? What size? Possibly rootbound? No P or K feeding, only N? Different location? From seed or a store-bought plant? etc.

Dave

Lauran- I'm also in the Bay Area and my San Marzanos are not as full and robust as my other tomato plants, but they'er producing well and are at around 7 feet tall. Like Dave says, if you've got yellow leaves you might want to back off on the watering.

Tammy- Nice pics of your garden. Luckily none of my San Marzanos (knock wood) have been hit with BER. As to the Marvel Stripe, I will never grow them again. 95% of them last year were hit with BER, great color though.

We've been having a lot of cool wet weather here in VT. SO my San Marzanos look healthy enough, but are still short & squatty. We really need some 80 degree days for things to start shooting up. Even the farmers' cow corn has barely grown.

Plants were store bought, with no sign of disease, planted in soil. Watering is not excessive, done in the morning. I might try to fertilize them more, maybe the soil is depleted (they are in a neighbor's garden, my other tomatoes are in my garden that has very healthy soil).

Plants are bearing fruit, but they are just looking scrawny.

Thanks!

Although not in the Bay area, San Marzano has disappointed me for years. I vowed that this would be the last year of trying...

In the past, the plants have looked bad and although the fruit tastes wonderful, the yield has been low as well. My garden is not huge and there are so many varieties to try...

I am now growing SM 3. When I started the seeds, I had little faith but the seedlings were attention getting. I prepared for failure and only planted one plant, but I have to say it looks GREAT!! It has more fruit then any other variety, in my garden so far this year.

A friend, that I gave seedlings (SM and SM Redorta and SM 2) to in the past, plants his in well protected areas and said that when we had a late frost, the SM plant was the best he's seen.

Perhaps SM is too wussy for my garden environment, but I am surprised daily at the health and vigor of the SM 3. I'll share seeds in a few months. Email me if interested.

Weird......down here it's hot, dry and the San Marzanos are still putting on fruit. The plants are at least 6' and full of fruit. Could be a climate thing.

Same here. SM has always been a huge sturdy plant for me - easily 8 feet plus and with so many fruit I can't keep up with picking them. But it is true that we get much warmer weather here too and I never water in-ground plants more than once a week and then only if no rain.

Over-watering kills and stunts more plants than anything else IMO. Causes root rot and shallow rooting. So Lauran try a good feeding and then give cutting back on the water even more for a few days and see what happens. You have nothing to lose. ;)

Still it sounds as if perhaps some of you may have gotten mis-labeled plants or seeds.

Dave

I'm raising Super Marzanos here in POrtland - which isn't the most tomato-friendly place with our cool springs, but my super marzanos are doing as well as my sungolds and my early girls - all are about 5' tall. The Super M's have LOTS are (green) fruit in the works. Of course, I don't know the difference between San Marzanos and my Super Marzanos...

I am in the PNW and out of all of my mater plants the San Marzanos are extremely prolific and taking over other plant (literally). Good luck with them.

Lauran,

I have grown many San Marzano, SM Redorta, & Super Marzano hybrid tomatoes. Normally these strains of wispy/laced leaves that are not prolific on growth of their plants, but tomato yields are pretty good. I also grew these when I lived in the Bay Area (peninsula)and have experienced similar problems. As Dave and others have stated, back off on the watering to a lower consistent rate. When I reduced watering to a lower and more consistent water schedule, the SM's and BER disappeared. One thing that seemed to kick SMs into growing better was organic compost in my gardens now. It appears to help on BER, but generally I used a fertilizer that more than the standard 3 nutrients and conatins the additional nutrients (Calcium, Sulfur, Copper, Magnesium, Iron, etc...) Agri Gypsum (Calcium/Sulfur) is good for the garden.

You may want to try those suggestions.

This is kind of OT, but where did you find heirlooms for sale here in the Bay Area? I haven't seen any at the nurseries around here, but I guess I'm just looking in the wrong places?

This will our fist year growing San Marzano...we've suffered some bad leaf wilt with our starts. any suggestion are welcome to save my tomatoes. I've followed all the directions and they still seem to be wilting. We are have them under grow lights till we can get them in the cold frame. Still a bit too early in Portland Or.