strange looking tomatoes

jennlynn2072

7 years ago

I am growing heirloom yellow pear tomatoes. All of these are from the same plant, and were picked at the same time. The yellow one was from the middle part of the plant, while the other three were from the top. There are some other weird looking tomatoes on the plant, but I didn't pick them in the hopes that whatever is wrong will be fixed with time.

I fertilized them last weekend, and I'm giving them diluted amount of MG tomorrow. I have another plant next to it that is doing well but doesn't have a lot of flowers or tomatoes. Well, it did but their in pots, and we got a gust of wind that blew over the plants and a bunch of unripe tomatoes fell off. :( I'm actually contemplating fertilizing with an organic bloom fertilizer instead of MG, the exact name of which I can't remember at the moment. But it has bone meal and a menagerie of other ingredients that are good for flowering plants.

I've been growing tomatoes forever, and this year has really sucked for me. They're my first indeterminates, and also my first heirloom.

I'm hoping someone can give me some direction, or some links to read, or you know, anything really. I'm open to suggestions.

Jenn

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Comments (8)

Labradors
7 years ago
Ha ha! They are a bit weird looking!

YP probably wasn't the best heirloom variety to try because most people (including me) think it is tasteless. That's a pity because it is very productive and doesn't split.

Linda
digdirt2
7 years ago
I'm not really sure what your question is so please bear with me. The yellow one looks fairly normal for yellow pear, the one next to it has some zippering at the neck which is usually inconsistent water caused, and I can't see the other two nearly well enough in the pic to ID what the problem may be.

The most common cause of problems with indeterminates grown in pots is too small a pot to begin with. Keeping the nutrient and moisture levels consistent is nigh on to impossible. As a general rule, the pot size that will cope with a determinate variety cannot cope with an indeterminate variety. Makes no difference if they are heirloom or hybrids.

As Linda said, Yellow Pear is considered a spitter by most but it is a big plant and heavy producer, more so than many other indeterminates, so any pot/water/nutrient restrictions would be more noticeable with it.

Any fertilizer that contains bone meal is likely one of the dry granular organic ones and they tend to work quite poorly in containers because there is no active soil food web to digest them so the plants can use them. Plus bone meal is so slow acting (months down the line) that while it can be quite beneficial for next years plants in the same soil it does little for this year's. The MG or better yet, a liquid organic works much better.

Dave
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gorbelly
7 years ago
How does the foliage look on that plant? It's hard to diagnose something from just one picture of one part. Other parts of the plant can offer good clues to what's going on.
jennlynn2072
Original Author
7 years ago
I hope that's big enough. I have one plant in a 5 gal bucket and a second plant in a container which is slightly larger, maybe 6 gal or so. We've had some weird weather. It went from 95 to 78 in a matter of a few days, and the temp dipped low for a few nights. I water every evening. I soak it well. I fertilize weekly. Maybe I'm not fertilizing enough? I don't use the full strength MG. I've been diluting it by half.
jennlynn2072
Original Author
7 years ago

These are pics from the tomato plant.
gorbelly
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
Plants look healthy, so I would go with Dave's (digdirt) advice.

Personally, I would fertilize at 1/4 strength MG for tomatoes every time I water for pots that small, switching up with water only for a few days in a row now and then just to cover the bases re: fertilizer buildup.

You might also look into drip irrigation for future years, although you should also get much larger containers to grow indeterminates. Things like Earth Boxes/earthtainers/self-irrigating planters are also something to look into.

To finish out the season, you could try an old 2 liter soda bottle, poke a few tiny holes in the bottom with something fine, like a needle, and fill that and place on the soil's surface to slowly water your plant over time. You could put some rocks down in it to keep it from blowing over when it's empty unless you can wedge it in the cage.

There are also things like the Plant Nanny, which is a spike you can put on the end of a bottle, in case the container is too small to sit a bottle on top.
digdirt2
7 years ago
Agree that in such small containers indeterminates will be challenged - try for 10 gallons minimum in the future. In the fruit 2nd photo the 3 green ones show signs of BER, both internal and external and that is primarily a moisture stabilization issue (inconsistent moisture levels cause inconsistent distribution of the Ca throughout the plant). That variety, like all the plum/paste types is prone to BER.

Far as I know MG All Purpose does not supply calcium like the MG for Tomatoes does so you might want to consider picking up a liquid Ca supplement or some dolomite lime.

Dave
gorbelly
7 years ago
Dave: Far as I know MG All Purpose does not supply calcium like the MG for Tomatoes does so you might want to consider picking up a liquid Ca supplement or some dolomite lime.

Good catch. A lot of times, new gardeners don't understand that MG for tomatoes is actually a different formula.