Hey! Thanks for the info! You're right...Don't Mist! It only increases humidity for a couple seconds, really.... and, as you note, increases the chances of fungus/pests/unsightly leaves. Also, I'm glad that the plants have plenty of light. That's good to hear, as it allows us to eliminate one more variable. How long does it take for the potting soil to dry out (deep in the container)? I assume that the problem lies with the potting soil, which sounds water retentive. If the primary ingredient is peat moss, it's almost assuredly staying too moist. As you know, this can interfere with nutrient delivery and uptake. This is why I hesitate to recommend fertilization...it could be that there are nutrients in the soil, but nutrients that are simply unavailable to the plant. I will tell you that I fertilize my plant with Foliage Pro 9-3-6, which has higher Nitrogen in relation to the other major nutrients. It also includes all the minor nutrients. When I fertilize, I also add white vinegar (a capful) to the watering solution - but I can only recommend this for the potting mix that I'm using. I don't know how it will affect a soil with different drainage characteristics. My sister grew a couple Avocados in peat-based soils and the plants declined eventually. I actually decided to grow an Avocado to see if I could find a way to keep these plants happy both indoor and out, so that my sister would be able to grow them successfully, too. I've found that the potting mix makes all the difference - if light and fertilizer are equal. The taller the plant grows, the more likely it is to discard its lower leaves.... and that's why I prune the main stem and pluck any unsightly leaves. A bare Avocado stem will resprout leaves as long as the roots are healthy. Josh

Dan, I've used a few different mixes in containers and I like the sound of your sea soil. The problem with containers is that the system is really too small to set up a true organic soil system in them. People do all sorts of things and may technically get away with it, but I my abilities can't do a completely organic soil and get reliable production, since any "help" and you kid yourself that it is "almost organic". That said, I had some luck with a mixture of 1/3 compost (Black Kow Composted Organic), 1/3 peat & 1/3 perlite in summer but you must watch it doesn't get waterlogged. I know it sounds strange, but raw perlite is "organic". You could put some of those fancy rock dusts in there and dolomitic lime and give it a whirl. Problem is at some point your plants will need the nutrient boost of something like Miracle Gro, which is not organic, but not as bad as some make it out to be, either! There are some Fox Farms hydroponic/organic and Dutch Master hydro organic ones, but these things are really cost intensive and there is no way I could afford to even evaluate them. Tomato-Tone is organic and you can use some of it (the affordable option I would use) but a lot of experimentation is necessary to get it right in a bucket. Those are the tools I would use. There are others that are more expert than I am in this forum on organic methods in a container, but the problem is that ingredients and climates can vary enough that a lot of experimentation is necessary anyway and it is a bit much to ask of a container considering the nutrient demands of a big tomato plant. And a bigger contaner ( say, 25 gallons) can be costly to fill with organic nutrients only. There are other much more economic ways to go if you drop the requirement of deriving all nutrition from "organic" sources, for example pine mulch, etc, is cheap but offers no nutrition so it doesn't get you anywhere nutrient wise, though it might help you save on perlite. I can't answer whether your tap is appropriate for your plant, even knowing the pH is 7.5. That's because it will be the interaction among the tap, soil ingredients and amendments that determine the pH of the container. For example, if your soil starts on the acid side which it likely will it needs to be neutralized with some lime, but you can do what I do ... put less in and water with alkaline water for a while. Clearly that is not an optimal situation but to be honest my plants do fine despite all the issues with pH, and my tap is pH 7.7. But this is a fragil relationship and the only way to now for sure is to pH test your soil while you grow toget the hang of what's happening, if you are really enthusiastic. Just because it works for me, btw, doesn't mean it will work for everyone. We get lots of rain here and that frequently washes trhough soil mixesand I purposely open the tops wide to encourage that. No residue builds up from the tap or any of my not-organic supplements due to the rain. The common wisdom of hydroponics of a vegetative and a reproductive period fertilization schemes doesn't seem very pronounced to me when growing the tomato for the long haul. To be perfectly honest, I think all these mantras about vegetative stages and drastic changes during flowering stages are geared towards high value crops LOL. Really with tomato plants you want to keep the nitrogen at a baseline, low in all of my scenarios. You are not growing vines, they get quickly unmanageable for indeterminates and make few tomatoes, and most everyone here seems to agree that being pretty stingy with nitrogen is the way to go. That's the opposite of what you've done. When I grow my tomatoes, my seedlings have only 1/2 to 2/3 the nitrogen the producing plants do, so my nitrogen rate actually increases for me. At the end I back off though because the plants get less productive and unmanageable so there's a lot of give and take. Hope that helps a little, because nothing is as easy as it seems, so most people find something that works and get pretty stuck to it. Cheers PC

I've had this plant for 2 years. It's very large and bushy. It grows very well but almost every leaf is brown at the tip and the plant is constantly dropping leaves. Any idea what's wrong? I suspect humidity but not sure.

Another day, another plant woe... I thought dragon plants were indestructible but mine is looking peakier by the day. Its leaves are turning brown, and I don’t understand why - I water it when the moisture sensor tells me I need to (when it’s dry down to maybe a cm or two), and it’s near a big south-facing window. What am I doing wrong? (Houzz is not letting me post a photo right now for some reason but I will try again in a bit)