Saturday, December 05, 2009

Plotting for a food garden, week 10


Hot today, 37 deg.


Needing a shower.


Russian Black tomatoes look as if they are damaged or eaten - not good anyway. Bugger! Wonder what went wrong, not enough water, too much water? And the plant looks sick. Cut two off & this is what they look like!

4 comments:

diane b said...

The lettuces look healthy. that's hot! Hope they survive. I am still trying to grow vegies with very little success.

Stephanie V said...

What a shame! They don't look very happy, do they? Your greens look delicious, though.
We had an issue with rot on the blossom end of tomatoes and zucchini - lack of calcium is the answer. We've increased the eggshell content in our compost as a result.
I've been told that tomatoes don't really like too much water. I once read that the Italian gardeners only dribble a little water on each plant after the sun goes down. They should know tomatoes.

Victoria Summerley said...

Hi, Angie, saw your comment on VP's blog. I grew Black Russians one year and they turned out very much like that. I never got to the bottom of what was wrong with them - I just made a mental note never to grow them again!

Stuart said...

Hey Angie. Thanks for dropping in and cheers for the comment.

As Stephanie said, the problem is blossom-end rot which is related to a lack of calcium - very common in our lacklustre sandy soils. Watering only compounds the effect because it leeches any calcium out of the soil. The solution - a good seaweed fertiliser. It has all the nutrients your tomatoe needs for growing in these regions.