185. It's July 4th. Have You Fed Your Tomato Plants?

I'm coming at this a bit late (but it's never too late) for you south of me, but I always use the date July 4th (or thereabouts) as a day to give my tomato plants a little extra summer feeding.  They benefit greatly from an extra dose of fertilizer (hopefully organic, but whatever you have will work) right about now, after they have set a few baby fruits.  In addition, about a tablespoon per plant of bone meal, and a tablespoon per plant of Epsom salts -- the kind you get at the drug store or supermarket to soak your turned ankle in.  It is magnesium sulfate.  If you have some coffee grounds, add a bunch of those, too.  Slightly scratch it all into the soil near your plant and water in.  Your tomatoes will thank you, and the bone meal and Epsom salt regimen helps to prevent blossom end rot, which is the heartbreaking condition of your tomato JUST ABOUT RIPENING, and then rotting on the bottom.  Makes you want to cry, it does. 

It's also a good idea to remove the bottom layer of leaves right about now.  That helps to prevent fungal disease that might splash up from the soil, increases air flow around the plants which also helps prevent fungal spread, and lets more energy go upward to the fruits, more blossoms, and top leaves of the plant.

There was one year when my tomato plants just looked awful and they were dying.  I believed I had tomato blight.  I used the above method, and they recovered. It was not blight, it was just calcium and magnesium deficiency.  The next year a friend, an even-longer-time gardener than I, wailed at me:  "I've got tomato blight!" 

Tomato blight is bad, bad, bad, and it lives in the soil and it means you can't grow tomatoes in that spot for sometimes many years.  So this is real reason for a tomato-lover to be upset. 

I said to her, "Are you sure it's blight?" and told her what had happened to me.  She tried my methods. Yep.  Same thing.  So there you have your highly scientific study of two, and I have absolutely no idea where I first learned how to do this.  I must have read it somewhere, but it's been so long I can't remember. 

It's an excellent idea to do this same thing to your peppers and your eggplants and your cucumbers, too. The vegetable doctor is in:  Take bone meal and Epsom salts and cut off the bottom leaves, and call me in the morning.

Harvest Photo of the Day

Have a happy and safe July 4th. 

Comments

[jess]

dang, thanks for the reminder. I was cutting back the bottom leaves earlier this week but I really REALLY need to fertilize! maybe today!

[Adrianne]

So beautiful are your berries. I do adore a picture of blueberries in hand. I could watch your phota all night.

[Kristen]

Yup, snipped the leaves yesterday and gave 'em a shot of kelp. I'll keep the Epsom salts in mind though.

[Sarah]

Yes, ma'am! Thanks for helping with the gardening.

[Kathy]

Will do. My garden is growing like mad with all the rain.

[elizabeth a airhart]

happy fourth of july 2008

[margene]

I need to feed the little patch of dirt outside my front door. Happy 4th!!

[Carole]

I will feed my tomatoes today and I will think of you!

[Beth @ A Quest for Relevance]

Oh yay! You taught me something new!!

Happy 4th!!

[marianne]

You are such an incredible wealth of information! Happy 4th to you!

[Manise]

Happy 4th Norma! Have never used the bone meal epsom salt trick. Will have to try it as well as the leaves. Actually started doing some of the latter yesterday before our storm and rain. Will have to wait on the rest of the leaves as it's not good to handle wet foliage. More fungal badness is spread around that way. Also for those that have bunnies visiting their veggie garden- they adore bone meal! So put up the deer netting around the perimeter as I finally have- Ms Bunny thought it would be nice to help me thin my beets. Fortunately she found the bolting parsley from last year more tasty and the beet damage was minimal. Also crop rotation of tomatoes, eggplants etc.. is necessary to keep the diseases from setting up shop. But you already knew that! Thought i'd put it out there for everyone else who might not know.

Your blueberries look yummy!

[Marcia]

I finally had to cover the blueberry bushes with summerweight row cover cloth yesterday...the birds were having a feeding frenzy on my blueberries! Hope we get even a handful of ripe ones! I'll wait to feed the 'matoes till it dries up a bit....many downpours here last night with more to come according to the weather guessers. Happy Fourth!

[mary lou]

Any opinions on staking vs. not staking tomatoes. I have reading and surfing and see there are pro-anti staking camps. I may try leaving 2 of my plants to their vining ways. Did my epsom salts a few weeks ago, but haven't tried bone meal/coffee. Next feeding time.

[maryse]

thanks for the info! i don't have tomatoes yet, just tiny yellow flowers. should i feed anyway?

[kmkat]

Mmmmmm, blueberries!

[(formerly) no-blog-rachel]

I ate my first tomato from my garden on Wednesday! A small, yellow pear type. I was all excited about having the first tomato from the garden, but I was still a nice wife and offered to share it with my husband. He said 'no thanks' because he'd already eaten one off the plants earlier in the week! I feel so betrayed. The nerve!

Granted, he does most of the gardening around here, but still. Humph.

I made a stir-fry last night using our own zucchini and pak choi - yum!

[KittyMommy]

Mmmmm...dude, I may have to walk to your house and steal those blueberries. (Don't worry, we're in Wisconsin and the kids would wimp out on my before we even got to the edge of town)

[Cheryl S.]

I'm not sure if I have any bone meal on hand, but I certainly have Epsom salts and coffee grounds. I'll have to go rummage through the shed to see what else I have. Seems like I might have bought some sort of organic tomato food a while back. Thanks for the nudge!

[Seanna Lea]

Stunning blueberries! I miss having a high bush plant just outside my front door. It was great for picking breakfast during the summer.

[Christina]

I'm with maryse- I only have blossoms on all my plants. The biggest things in my garden are my cukes. My sugar snap peas croaked because of all the rain. It has been so wet here in Indiana (at least one thunderstorm a week, often 3 or 4) that my garden is really suffering. What to do??

[claudia]

How far up the stem should I remove the leaves?

[Marisa]

If it ever stops raining...

Where does one get bone meal?

[naomi]

Yay, blueberries! They look wonderful (and less thorny than the black raspberries)!

[Elizabeth]

Garden report: The tomatoes are growing but no blossoms yet, the carrots have sprouted finally and it's time to plant the next batch, the zucchinis are growing, the acorn squashes will be ready to tumble over soon, and I rescued a portion of the freebie black raspberries from the marauding turkey.

[JessaLu]

I think I may have blight...but I'll try your method and see if it works! Thanks, Norma :o)

[Rachel]

I am glad to read this. I think I too have blight, but then my tomatoes have been putting out ripe 'maters for a month now and I also think they might just be dead.

Also, we are SO not in the same zone. I loved when my garden was so green and pretty like yours. July is tough on gardens here.

I'm wondering if tomatoes might prefer dappled sunlight/shade instead of full sun? They get late afternoon shade, but the rest of the day is pretty hot.

[anne]

oh great tip! i'm pretty sure i don't have blight but something is amiss in the tomatoes. i pruned them the other day (cuz i couldn't stand the way they look with yella leaves!) but while i'm out today i'm getting bone meal and epsom salts. coffee grounds we have . . .hehehe.
side note: a landscaper told me that coffee grounds are also a great deterrent for slugs and hornworms; put them in a circle around the plants and the creepy crawlers won't go over them (too scratchy for their skin i guess).