Other possibilities, which would require a photo:
1) disease (could be so many. Impossible to tell without a photo, and even then, certain diagnosis requires seeing a plant live).
2) herbicide damage (would come with very obvious visible signs)

So if there are actual signs of disease or deformation, post some photos. Otherwise, it really seems like a nutritional issue as addressed above.

"I mixed peat moss and Black Kow compost into every hole when I planted. I've done some foliar sprays with epsom salts and milk/molasses. I put epsom salt around each plant. I side-dressed with eggshells. What else can I do?"

Agree with gorbelly - you could feed them something they can actually use, that actually supplies the needed nutrients, rather than just spraying and side-dressing with stuff they can't use and likely don't need even if they could use it.

When one chooses to rely on all these "home-remedy" tricks it is vital to understand exactly what it is they are supposed to accomplish and why, in most situations, they don't actually work as claimed.

Peat moss contains essentially no nutrients and is merely a soil amendment, not anything else. Nothing wrong with Black Kow but it is very low dose and used up quickly and only available to the plant if there is an active soil herd of bacteria to digest it. Epsom salts supplies only magnesium, a minor nutrient and nothing else. Milk and egg shells supply nothing except a small amount of calcium, another minor nutrient, and only supply it 6-8 months after application.

You apparently are trying to grow organically only. That's fine IF you understand how that works and the time that is involved in making it work - lots and lots of compost and months of work ahead of time. There are any number of great liquid organic fertilizers available that can provide all your plants need. But despite all the hype one reads on the internet, what your plant needs doesn't come from the kitchen or other strange concoctions one makes up on their own.

Dave

Hey, hey, now! Sensing some sarcasm and eye-rolling here.... ;) How else can a person learn but by asking?! :) Thank you both, Digdirt2 and gorbelly--those answers are so helpful! I have been on a pretty limited garden budget for quite awhile, so I absolutely have been trying to make do with less expensive options (not an "all additives ever in the garden are anathema" attitude). But what you're saying makes perfect sense.

@gorbelly: Most of the plants do not have signs of disease this year (hooray!). So it probably is the nutrients. And I don't think our season is over yet, since the best plants are still producing. Is there a liquid fertilizer brand you'd recommend? (Would a liquid be absorbed faster by the plants, to get them a shot of nutrition while the season lasts?) And would I get the best soil test from the County Extension office, or is there a test I can purchase and do myself?

@ digdirt2: So does homemade compost have more nutrients than storebought? Or what's the best way to get really good organic matter into the soil? And do you have a preferred brand of fertilizer?

Seriously, thanks so much for taking time to write. Gardening seems to be a tough hobby because you get one shot per year, and then you have to wait a whole year to try again! (Not like piano practice, where you can play the same measure 15 times in a row if you need to.) So it takes many years to learn things.

No sarcasm was directed at you - sorry, not my intention. It's directed at all those websites out there with the far out-in-left-field claims of feeding your plants milk and aspirin and egg shells and Tums and vinegar and banaba peels, etc. and that epsom salts cures all ills.

They push all the mis-leading info out on the masses and do them and real organic gardeners a disservice in the process. Not only do the plants fail but they end up spending more money than it would cost to just buy a small bottle of basic fertilizer or a bag of compost.

Homemade compost usually has many more nutrients than store bought but that all depends on what all you add to it and how you do it. But if you can't compost then store-bought is better than most other things.

The crucial factor with compost is that it is primarily a soil amendment - the best soil amendment - it is not a fertilizer. For any of it to feed plants there must first exist a very active soil food web. Without that - no nutrients. Plus it only works in soil, in dirt, in the ground. Not in containers with soil-less potting mix.

As for preferred brands of organic fertilizer - fish and seaweed blended liquid emulsions diluted and fed per label directions can provide most everything your plants need in a readily available form.

Dave

I didn't mean any sarcasm, either. I feel as Dave does, that there is a lot of bad advice out there that tries to make it seem that using fertilizer is some kind of laziness, environmental harm, or inferior way to garden (it is none of those things) and that gives novice gardeners the impression that people can grow lush, healthy gardens loaded with beautiful, juicy tomatoes with just some compost, kitchen waste, and home remedies.

First , it could be helpful if you posted picture of you plants, long shots,close ups.

Along the same line, I also say that cow manure ( some manure and lots of other compost mixed with it) and Peat Moss are just soil conditioners.

Epsom Salt (Magnesium Sulfate) is a source for Mag. But Mag is one of the secondary elements for plants. What plants need/use most are (1) N , (2) K and (P) in the order of amount needed.

Eggshell is mostly Calcium Carbonate in solid form. In order to release the calcium to an ionic form (Ca++). It will take years for that to happen in the garden soil. There are simple calcium sources. One is "Fast Acting Lime" AKA Dolomitic Lime, available in all BBS. I use it all the time with my potting mix (my own mix ).

Sey

digdirt2: gotcha. I can totally sympathize with that attitude, especially about doing the true organic gardeners a disservice. Frustrating. Guess I'll have to do some research on getting an active soil food web and add the fertilizer and see what happens. :)

gorbelly: thanks :) yes, it is very easy to get that impression and it's hard to know who(m?) to trust when so much information is available everywhere. Thanks for giving me an alternative view! Definitely looking into this more to see what will work best for my little plot.

seysonn: I'm awful at getting my pictures onto the computer, and since they're just not growing (not a disease), I wasn't sure a photo would be terribly helpful. But if you think by seeing one you'd have more specific advice, I can try to figure it out :) By "soil conditioners," do you mean they adjust just the pH of the soil? And not really add that much nutrients?

coffee grounds are high in nitro, for what that is worth. my plants are growing finally, but the fruits are still green (i want to post a thread about that). i am getting impatient! good luck!

Actually Christian coffee ground are quite low in nitrogen - most of it is vaporized by the brewing process - and it would take a great deal of them to make much of a difference. Plus they provide none of the phosphorous or potassium or micro-nutrients that the plants need to grow and set and ripen fruit.

dinner _s: soil conditioners/amendments work to improve the tilth (consistency) and water retention/drainage of soil. Some of them may have a secondary benefit of a mild pH adjustment but it is temporary.

Dave

All good advice. But given that you've been having regular problems in this bed, a soil test is a MUST. Also, if you're trying to fertilize on a limited budget, without really knowing what you need, Miracle Gro general purpose food is an exceptionally cheap all-purpose fertilizer. But Dave is absolutely right. Those home remedy magic potions (and they're CHEAP!) like milk, molasses, epsom salts, and eggshells work as well as you might expect a magic potion to. I think you're supposed to utter an incantation and do a dance when you apply them, you know. But if nutrients are the issue, be very careful about distinguishing soil amendments (which benefit soil structure) from soil fertilizers (which actually are nutrients). "Good stuff" is usually either one or the other, and not often both.

"This is my 6th year gardening in north Alabama"

Do you have access to kudzu or kudzu compost? I ask because World record tomatoes were grown in Alabama by a Charles H. Wilber using kudzu compost.

Nothing wrong with ye olde cow really. One can grow really nice tomatoes with just that as long the soil is clay based so it has the microminerals. Just know that you need to use more than if you would use synthetic fertilizers (it is weaker but it's not that weak). And mix it well with the soil when applying. If you suspect undernutrition, maybe it's because it has probably been 2-3 months since transplanting, so that initial feeding is just used up. Tomato requirements shoot up a lot after fruit starts forming.

digdirt2: ahhh, ok. I definitely needed to improve the tilth and drainage ability of our garden, but I guess I figured the one product would do that and give nutrients. thanks again.

daninthedirt: I'm chuckling while picturing an incantation and dance over the eggshells! Thanks for pointing out the difference between amendments and fertilizers. What's the best way to get a soil test done?

aruzinsky: I have never heard of kudzu compost! We thankfully don't have kudzu to deal with on our property, but I will keep my ears open for anyone who does or who composts it. Thanks!

fungus: We have very heavy clay soil, so the Black Kow compost definitely has helped to give it better consistency. It had been the 2-3 months you mention, so it sounds like all the things are adding up to it being undernutrition, and yes, it became really noticeable after fruit started setting. Thanks so much!

Your local extension service will offer a detailed professional chemical soil test. The Auburn extension does that routinely in your state. Should set you back ten bucks or so per sample, including postage. http://www.aces.edu/anr/soillab/  You get the results for that "Routine Soil Analysis" back by e-mail within 24 hours after they receive your soil sample.

Re: coffee grounds--
They have nitrogen, but the problem, as with many other home remedy type amendments, is that very little of the nitrogen is in a form the plants can use anytime soon. It needs to be broken down by soil microbes before plants can use it, and that takes time, especially if you don't have a well-established and healthy soil micro-ecosystem. Also, coffee grounds don't provide the P and K fruiting veg need, and it's deficient in many of the key minerals plants require. In the right soil, it can probably be a fine part of a long-term amendment strategy.

Analysis of Starbucks coffee grounds.

(Note that I think that article is talking about a baseline amount of nutrition when it says coffee grounds can provide everything plants need. Fruiting veg like tomatoes need a lot of nutrition, and I have a hard time believing that Sunset would give the impression that one could grow something like squash or tomatoes with just coffee grounds as an amendment.)

dinner_s - Do your plants have very many green tomatoes that have already been set on them? The reason I ask is that the hot weather that most of the country is experiencing now and probably will be for several more weeks will most likely shut down any additional fruit from being set until the weather cools down with highs below 90 and lows in the 60s. By then it is likely that any late fruit set will not have time to grow and ripen before the cooler fall temps move in.

All: I applied Miracle Gro last night. May not be the ultimate best option, but it's what was available so we'll see what happens! Thanks again for all the suggestions--wow! I'm blown away :)

Also, you may or may not be a tomato gardener if you dream about Dipel Dust and someone telling you, "Oh, the hornworms can eat Dipel dust and still be okay. You really have to douse them." Let's hope the Dipel I also put out there last night does its job too! I need at least one Golden Pineapple tomato :)

LoneJack: yes, several of them do (but not all). We've had a few spells of several days that didn't get too hot, and I definitely saw more fruit set then on the healthiest plants. But they all seem to have stalled in their green leafy growth, especially my latest transplants.