Get some epsom salt for them! Generally they need better fertilization with a complete fertilizer. Miracle Gro in addition to the epsom salt would help perk them up if you are open to using it. Try to keep watering more uniformly, as tomatoes don't like to be wet, but do need a lot of water.

PC

I agree: Either the soil is lacking the nutrients or it has been raining an/or watered too much.

Sey

It looks like the bottom part of the plant looks the worst. I think that's the good thing. Do what Pupilla and Sey suggest and I believe they will be fine

Thanks so much! How do you apply Epsom salts to plants?

Don't forget to snip off the worst of the branches, especially the splotchy ones with brown spots. They will never recover anyway and may even become a vector for disease if left on the plant.

Otherwise they look very salvageable with good green growth up top.

Good luck either way.

Steve

"How do you apply Epsom salts to plants?"

Michelle, If you have a garden pump sprayer in this case it would be best, as a one time punch of 2 level teaspoons in a quart and mist the leaves thoroughly in the early morning before there is any hot Sun, while the plant is 'waking up (important!). Don't worry about emptying the sprayer completely out once the plant's leaves are all mist-drenched, but be liberal about applying it. Get the underside if you can. If not spraying/misting leaves only, just add a teaspoon to a gallon and use it this week and next for one watering each time. Either way, but the leaves is more immediate fertilization when done like this. You can fertilize at the same time with Miracle Gro, no problem, just follow their mix instructions to irrigate the roots. Many ways to do it, but this will work well.

Good Luck!

PC

I'm skeptical about epsom salt as a remedy without some real soil analysis or at least some expert perspective on the appearance of the plant. There are a lot of things that can make plants do what you're seeing and, frankly, I suspect that magnesium deficiency isn't that likely. I'd save my money from the epsom salt and get a real soil analysis done. You'll be doing yourself a favor by doing that. Without that, you're just shooting randomly. FWIW, clay soils tend to bind magnesium, potassium, and calcium. So clay soils will tend to have more of those nutrients than other soils. If this is a bed that has never seen a good crop before (though you called them "garden beds" -- were they really used for that in the past?), I have to wonder if there is something about the soil that really needs attention.

Sure, they can do a soil analysis and bring in the kind folks at the county laboratory/University cooperative extension to help. Nothing beats a professional lab analysis, especially if someone does it for free or even $30 ;-)

While you wait for the results, LOL, I'd add a couple of teaspoons of epsom salt appled like this. It will not hurt the tomatoes and would be appreciated by the plants anyway when appled at this rate, and you or your neighbor probably have some in your medicine cabinet, this is about one or two cents' worth.

The plants look generally deficient in several important nutrients (a general failure to uptake nutrients) and Miracle Gro will be helpful by the anyway now and for the future if you don't mind using it, and most gardeners already have it or can pick it up at Walmart for $5 providing the simpliest system to get into tomatoes until you're ready to experiment with other more interesting methods to feed the plants. If there is time and inclination to do more great, though! ;-)

PC

Thanks for all the input! I'll do a little googling and see what I can find about getting the soil tested locally. In the meantime, I will pick up some miracle gro and Epsom salts. If nothing else I'll feel like I'm trying something :P.

In regards to the previous use of the beds, I can't be 100% certain of their history because this is a rental and I have zero communication with the former tenants. When I was cleaning it out for planting, however, I found those little plastic things they stick in plants to tell you what they are. It seems they had all sorts of things in there, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, cantaloupe, and more that I can't recall. It might be much to assume they were successful, but our rental agent made a passing comment about how they always had a real nice garden in the back.

FWIW, my local university extension does a basic soil analysis (pH, NO3-N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Na, S and conductivity) for just $10. I guess Miracle Gro can't hurt, but it's a wide spectrum fertilizer. So if it works, you really don't know what you fixed. Sounds like you have some evidence that this bed did well before. That's important info. I wonder what was in the garden soil you added.

With Miracle Gro or other soluble fert, you don't really fix the soil anyway. I think of it as something the plant can use immediately. And those plants need some first aid, stat!

Later, you can get a soil test and amend the soil so that you are not shooting in the dark, yes.

I agree with everyone, I think the plants need nitrogen, which will be supplied by the Miracle Gro. I would also consider the fact that you may be overwatering them. Push a bamboo skewer down into the soil and pull it out to judge moisture before watering.

The bamboo skewer is a great idea, thanks for that. I used this soil to mix in:

http://m.lowes.com/pd/Sta-Green-2-cu-ft-Flower-and-Vegetable-Garden-Soil/3353740

That makes sense. Hit it with some MG, which will hopefully ensure survival (that's not just first aid, but a whole hospital), and give you some time to think about what the real problem is.

I have bean and corn seedlings just poking up in the other side. Should I proactively doctor them up too, or leave them be and just try to figure out the soil problems while I treat the tomatoes?

MG won't hurt the beans and corn. I'm assuming that the beans and corn aren't close enough to the tomatoes that they'll get a lot of the MG you put on the latter anyway.

They can take 1/2 strength fertilizer when they have their first true leaves. If that hasn't happened yet you might want to wait a bit. Keep us updated!

Thanks again!

The rain won't stop, ugh. I mean, it stops, but not long enough for the soil to dry out. It's been raining every evening. Will I make it worse if I wet them again with the salt spray, or as long as I try to keep it on the leaves it shouldn't add that much moisture? Poor guys are so wet.

Hi Michelle, as long as you do the epsom salt spray in the early morning, the plant will have plenty of time to dry off as the morning advances. Timing is dual purposed:

1. Regarding the wet leaves: Think of it as morning dew - over night temperature falls so often the cooler air can't hold the water and presto: morning dew. Best to include the undersides of the leaves too. Just fit the spray into that morning cycle and you should be fine. But you're right, keeping leaves wet is a bad idea, so by doing this we avoid it as much as possible.
2. Regarding solutes in the leaves and droplets' optical effects: A low Sun will not burn leaves, but usually one at high noon can really destroy them when evaporation takes place quickly concentrating salts to the point of leaving visible deposits ... and the droplets are also like mini-magnifying glasses.

You're right in general not to keep leaves wet so you can avoid various fungi, molds, bacteria and other pathogens that thrive in the wetness. Here, I do my best, but every morning early the plants have droplets from the morning dew hanging off the various points of every leaflet looking like miniature crystal balls ...

Regarding the MG fertilizer, do that one on the root zone, not sprayed on the leaves, just to be clear. The roots can do the major work on the near full complement of fertilizer salts contained in the MG.

Can't wait to see how they do. Insert crying from "Audrey II", "Feed me, Seymour! Feed me!"

PC

Since I have a captive audience of tomato geniuses, I have another question. An old man at the farmers market gave my kiddos some sort of tiny tomato plant to grow in a planter, it's super cute. They had them in the yard and the rain is soooo much so I brought them up onto the patio. And noticed little things that look like slimed sesame seeds on the stalk. What are these?!

Ewww.

Those are roots. Totally normal response to moisture.

I'm so afraid you guys are going to say they're critter eggs and I need to pick them off. Gardening is such dirty work! Haha.

Oh thank god.

Yep. They're adventitious roots. Plant it deeper when you do transplant.

Rodney