Tomato plant-purple spotting!

[Vicy]

Hi all,

My tomato plant is doing well (grown from seed, planted End march) but I've noticed some purple colouring on the bottom leaves.

Ive looked in this forum and think it's perhaps low on phosphorus?

 

[Chuck]

Yep, that's what is causing it. Add a little rock phosphate or bone meal and water it in.

 

[Vicy]

Thanks!

Is that the same as tomato food or totally different?

 

[Chuck]

Thanks!

Is that the same as tomato food or totally different?

What kind of tomato food?

 

[Vicy]

What kind of tomato food?

 

[Chuck]

View attachment 89801

This fertilizer has phosphorus in it but in small amounts (2.2%) It also says to use it at twice the rate every 7 days. Feeding a plant that often with that much product means that the fertilizer is a weak solution. Most soluble/liquid fertilizers recommend every 2 weeks at the normal rate So, to answer your question, it is different. Bone meal or rock phosphate is normally applied in the planting hole at time of planting but when a deficiency shows it is better to be late than never. Also, you may as well repot into a larger container now as pear tomato plants get really big. At least a 4 gallon but up to 10 gallon is preferable.

 

[Chuck]

I don't mean to sound as if I don't approve of this product. It is one of the few fertilizers which is designed to feed plants at a slow rate. It is much better to give a plant how much it needs more often than to give a plant more than it can use. and have it leach away. Some individual plants just need more of one thing or another and in this case it is phosphorus.

 

[YumYum]

You should be able to give up to 1.6 oz weight of that product per 4.5 liters of water once per week. Not sure what that is in ml because I don't know the density of it.

 

[Vicy]

This fertilizer has phosphorus in it but in small amounts (2.2%) It also says to use it at twice the rate every 7 days. Feeding a plant that often with that much product means that the fertilizer is a weak solution. Most soluble/liquid fertilizers recommend every 2 weeks at the normal rate So, to answer your question, it is different. Bone meal or rock phosphate is normally applied in the planting hole at time of planting but when a deficiency shows it is better to be late than never. Also, you may as well repot into a larger container now as pear tomato plants get really big. At least a 4 gallon but up to 10 gallon is preferable.

Cool I will pick some up today then. Thank you so much for the advice, I'm a novice gardener with no gardening Friends close by so it really helps me!

 

[headfullofbees]

Rock phosphate & bonemeal are both excellent sources but slow.
Comfrey is nice & quick, or you can, in an hour, make a liquid feed that will deliver phosphate, with just some chicken manure pellets & tap water.
You can get them at Wilko too.

 

[headfullofbees]

I also see that you have two tomato plants in one 3-inch pot.
Separate them & put them into 5" pots, with new compost or soil.
That's probably why you ran out of nutrients in the first place.

 

[Vicy]

I also see that you have two tomato plants in one 3-inch pot.
Separate them & put them into 5" pots, with new compost or soil.
That's probably why you ran out of nutrients in the first place.

Is it possible they split into two plants? Because I literally only grew 1 seed in each pot!

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Is it possible they split into two plants? Because I literally only grew 1 seed in each pot!

Seeds are really good at finding their way around, they stick to each other or fingers and drop out of packets like they are animals, not plants. This has happened to me lots of times, "I know I only put one seed in", or one turns up in a pot of something completely different. The seed part of their life is the only time plants get to move to a new place, and they have evolved to be really good at it. There are plants that split like that, oranges for example, but not tomatoes, somehow another seed crept in.

 

[Vicy]

Seeds are really good at finding their way around, they stick to each other or fingers and drop out of packets like they are animals, not plants. This has happened to me lots of times, "I know I only put one seed in", or one turns up in a pot of something completely different. The seed part of their life is the only time plants get to move to a new place, and they have evolved to be really good at it. There are plants that split like that, oranges for example, but not tomatoes, somehow another seed crept in.

I've just tried and there's no way I'm going to be able to split this in two, its basically a conjoined twin!!

Ive repotted into a much larger pot with new compost and have some phosphorous feed on the way....

 

[Oliver Buckle]

When they are like that I drop the earth onto a surface from a short height , that usually shatters it a bit, then hold by the leaves and gently pull apart in little jerks. If I really couldn't get them apart I would probably nip the weaker looking one off at ground level, as I just said somewhere else one plant with plenty of room will often out perform two too close together.

 

[headfullofbees]

If you cut them in two with scissors, so that each has part of the roots, you will have two plants

 

[Vicy]

I've tried my best, I don't know if they will survive it but they both had some roots so we shall see!

 

[Vicy]

Update-I lost one of the tomato plants-I knew it, I was too rough with the splitting of the roots and one got more than the other. I figure keep the space for those that have a chance.

Purple gone, but they appear very leafy. 8 weeks old. When should I expect flowering and do you think they are doing OK?

I give them an organic feed once a week. No tomato food yet as I read that was for when they flower.

Weather in Manchester been gloomy for past week or so which they didn't like but Jubilee weekend is sunny!

 

[Chuck]

Buds will start to form very soon now. Start feeding with your tomato feed now. I would have been feeding with it all along as it has a fair amount of phosphorus in it and phosphorus is what makes buds and blooms.

 

[Tincasteve]

I use the same Wilco tomato feed. My bags are on a self watering system and I use half strength all the time with a bit of added Epsom salts. I very rarely have any problems.

The round tubs are also self watering from Lidl and I grow my toms around and around going up 1 layer each round, this stops them being top heavy. Still grown as a single stem. Cherries in the tubs and salad sized in the long grow bags with the beef grown in the greenhouse to get them away much earlier.