Your comments and tips

21 Nov 08, Nikki (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

I am having problems with all of my tomatoes - the fruit is going rotten just as they start to turn yellow then they fall on the ground. I have plenty of green tomatoes but they won't ripen - rot inside instead. Would love some advice!

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17 Nov 08, Perry (Australia - temperate climate)

The violent storms across Brisbane 16/11 didn't damage my little crop. The 80mm of rain was welcome. The cherrys are up to 150mm high. The marzano and roma survived the first repotting. The latest planted money maker variety is 50mm high and looking healthy.

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14 Nov 08, Perry (Australia - temperate climate)

List of tomato diseases. ( Wikipedia ). Tomato cultivars vary widely in their resistance to disease. Modern hybrids focus on improving disease resistance over the heirloom plants. Various forms of mildew and blight are also common tomato afflictions, which is why tomato cultivars are often marked with a combination of letters which refer to specific disease resistance. The most common letters are: V - verticillium wilt, F - fusarium wilt strain I, FF - fusarium wilt strain I & II, N - nematodes, T - tobacco mosaic virus, and A - alternaria. Another particularly dreaded disease is curly top, carried by the beet leafhopper, which interrupts the lifecycle, ruining a nightshade plant as a crop. As the name implies, it has the symptom of making the top leaves of the plant wrinkle up and grow abnormally. Some common tomato pests are cutworms, tomato hornworms and tobacco hornworms, aphids, cabbage loopers, whiteflies, tomato fruitworms, flea beetles, red spider mite, slugs,[6] and Colorado potato beetles.

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23 Jan 12, warsha (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

does anyone know about tomato fruit worm? any organic pesticide for them?

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11 Nov 08, Kevin Coombes (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

The leaves on the tomatoe plants that I have put into pots are going yellow/brown, do you know why?

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24 Oct 08, Jaci (Australia - temperate climate)

Grahame, thanks for the additional advice on how to treat the tomatoes. As you advised, I can't quite bear to treat them all so roughly and am attempting to grow 5 different varieties this season to allow me some early, mid and late season tomatoes. I am looking forward to my speckled romas and my green zebras along with a few others. I also have some unknown tomato varieties popping up from compost about the place.

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24 Oct 08, Perry (Australia - temperate climate)

I first grew cherry type tomatoes in Brisbane from seeds in late 2007 and again in April '08 when I bought eight 12 litre plastic buckets that I saw on special when I was looking for some pots. I put store-bought soil in 4 buckets, and some soil / debris from under a 10 year old pile of lawn clippings in the other four buckets. Both soil types achieved the same abundant results with little fertilizer and maybe too much water. They had about 9 hours of sunshine at best each day. I kept the soil around the plants covered with lawn clippings to retain heat in the soil. The 2007 crop, in smaller pots, had a good yield despite having only a couple of hours sunshine each day. One tomato plant and a young paw paw shared the same large pot. I am now trying to get four different types, cherry, roma, money maker, and marzano on the table for Christmas.

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20 Oct 08, bert (Australia - temperate climate)

I like to know were I can buy "agri fleece " my neighbor brought a piece back from the U.K helps against pests etc. I like the hint about short lengths of copper wire bye Bert

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20 Oct 08, Grahame (Australia - temperate climate)

Jaci, I think that is a good way of getting your tomatoes to set early fruit. But I don't think there is any need to treat all you tomatoes quite so harshly. When it gets hot in the summer they tend to get punishment enough. I reckon you should treat some of your tomatoes more kindly so that they can develop strong root systems to get them to bare well through the summer. That doesn't mean you have to treat them with kid gloves but it could help extend your season.

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19 Oct 08, Jaci (Australia - temperate climate)

Latest advice I got was this: Don't over water or feed your tomato seedlings!!! Your aim should be to deprive the seedlings of much water and fertiliser until they begin to bear fruit. That's right, when growing, feed them NO fertiliser and very little water! Just give them a pinch of Potash (Sulfate of ---) to strengthen the stem and the occasional watering when young. The trick is to make the plant think it is going to die (sort of like lowering its metabolism), so that it flowers and bears fruit earlier. You should note that the tomato plant WILL need extra fertiliser/water once it begins to fruit. You can also ripen your tomatoes inside the kitchen once they begin to change colour - there's no need to wait for them to ripen on the vine. It is said to dilute the flavour and increases the chances of letting the pesky birds get them first.

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