Your comments and tips

10 Sep 10, Neil (Australia - temperate climate)

Try a physical barrier, like exclusion bags, to keep the fruit fly off your tomatoes. I got some from Greeen Harvest last year, and they made a huge difference to the amount of fruit that survived.

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15 May 10, bill (Australia - tropical climate)

My tomato plants are just starting to bare fruit, but now the leaves are turning black on the ends and dying off. What should do.

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23 May 10, (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

It could be a fungal problem. I would take a couple of leaves into your local nursery/garden shop to show them.

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26 Apr 10, Robert (Australia - tropical climate)

I have one long garden bed (6m x 1.5m) this year just set aside to grow tomatos. I have planted a variety of types, common to all nurseries. This year half of my plants have taken (part shaded end of the bed) and started to grow while the other half (full sun) last about 1 week before all the leaves wilt and the plant dies (Surprisingly quickly). I have just tested and adjusted the PH as I found that it was a little low, but not drastically, in the sunny end of the bed. I don’t know why my plants keep dying but I can’t keep replacing them. Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing my plants to die? The only think that is growing in the same bed, surprisingly well, are the basil and marigold plants. I grew tomato’s quite successfully last year but in a different position in the garden.

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06 Jun 10, Ken (Australia - tropical climate)

I have had this problem, and was told it was nematodes. I am now going to grow them in pots, in the dry and see how they go in the wet. I am 220 km down the track from Darwin. Good luck

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23 May 10, (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

@Robert, could the heat at the sunny end of the bed be 'cooking' the young plants? Have you tried shading some of them to see if it makes a difference to survival? Another possibility is some sort of fungus/virus/pest if you've grown tomatoes in the same bed previously. Maybe try a cover crop of some sort to disrupt the pests?

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26 Apr 10, gary (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

Leila, as far as I know tomatoes are annuals and should be pulled up in April/May after they finish producing. I've never heard of them growing again from the same plant, but you may get a stack self-seeding if fruit has fallen off.

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24 Apr 10, Leila (Australia - temperate climate)

I have had a few different varieties of tomatoes planted since august 09 and they have all done very well howver I am trying to find out do tomatoe plants only last one season or once they have died around winter time will they come back? My plants are all still green and alive at the moment and producing fruit still as well. Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

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01 Apr 10, Barb (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

Hi Anna, If you squash caterpillars on the plant it discourages others from laying eggs there. Put a pot with flowers next to your tomatoes to encourage predators of the caterpillars. Also, I suggest you dig down to see if the soil is too moist towards the bottom of the pot - sometimes tomatoes wilt if their roots are too wet. If so, empty out the water in the 'self watering' and give them a little less water. Do feed the soil with seasol/fish emulsion, or worm wee if you have a worm farm - the nutrients should help make the plant more healthy. And don't worry - it's not you, it's just that tomatoes are notoriously susceptable to diseases and pests.

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31 Mar 10, Anna (Australia - temperate climate)

I'm trying to grow tomatos currently, I planted small Roma plants about a month or so ago (I don't know anything about tomatos) and now I plants about 1m big with around 10 small green tomatos which are being eaten by big green grubs (cabbage moth, I think). The leaves are drying out and falling away and the whole plant seems to be dying. I've got the two plants in 2 large self-waterig pots and I water them every second day. At this stage I'm afraid the plants will die before the tomatos ripen. For the grubs, I sprayed the plants and tomatos with cold coffee - it worked on slugs. My question is: what am I doing wrong?

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