What happening to my tomatoes?
14d 1h ago by lemmy.world/u/Custard in gardening
This is my second year trying to grow tomatoes on my balcony. Last year went alright but had some end rot on my romas. This year all 3 of my tomatoes have leaves that are turning brown like this. Can anyone tell what would cause it?
What fertilizer have you used?
What kind of soil do you have them in, and how often are you watering them?
We've had rain and cold weather the last week or so. The soil has been wet when I've touched it so I haven't manually watered them recently.
The soil is all purpose miracle grow
You don't want to use that junk on tomatoes, especially in containers. You want a soil that is meant for outdoor containers OR raised beds. It should have a sandy consistency, and dry out easily between waterings every 2-3 days.
You also want a slow release fertilizer for tomatoes and vegetables plants. It's essentially processed and dried manure and other plants material that breaks up and feeds your tomatoes over 4-6 weeks at a time. During the summer you'll apply 2-3 times, and that will keep them pretty balanced on the nutrient front.
Looks to me the issue is the soil here here.
Bag soil tends to retain too much water. Has the soil been saturated for days?
Yes
Yeah that'll do it. I'd dig them up, remove any rotted roots, fix the soil, and repot. Plenty of options like perlite, coarse sand, tree bark. And make sure you don't compact the soil by packing it down when potting.
Edit: also the other question about fertilizer. Could be too much. Likely not too much sun, since you said it's been cold and rainy.
@frongt It’s going to need a much bigger pot eventually, so might as well upgrade now. Compost and perlite is your best bet.
Ehhh. If it's already got too much water, I wouldn't want to put it in a big pot that holds even more water. I can't really tell how big those ones are, but the plants don't look like they've quite outgrown them yet.
@frongt The idea would be that the new soil is dry, so the excess water will percolate outward and the result will be a proper moisture level.
Yeah that works initially, but next time it rains it'll be collecting proportionally more water, while being consumed at an unchanged rate by the plant.
And you'd get better results by changing all the soil right away, not by taking the existing saturated soil and surrounding it with dry soil.
Do your pots drain?
The other two 
@Custard
It might be that the roots are having excessive water or a disease or lack of nutrients.
But in my observation it's lack of nutrients
Soil looks pretty wet and the pot quite small.
@Custard to me it looks like sunburn. If u don't harden off your young plants by introducing them to the sun a few hours a day, then longer, etc before planting, they can get sunburn/sunscald. My fig tree got it this year when I brought it out of the garage for too many hours at once. Peppers can get it too. Keep watering regularly, maybe use some Epsom salt watering once in awhile too. New leaves will grow, the damaged will die. My 2 cents.