[Sojourner]

Hi everyone. I'm really in need of some help to save my tomatos.

I have started a bunch of tomato seeds inside this year, they have all been coming along quite nicely until all of the sudden they have all started looking very sickly and their leaves are wilting and they're falling over.


Heres how they looked 10 days ago. I did notice some leaves were turning a little bit yellow, but I wasn't over concerned.
And five days ago



Here is what I was confronted with today when I went to check on them: These two are the worst of the bunch, but they are all looking rather bad.

This is my first test of using coco coir as a grow medium, as well as my first time starting tomatos inside. I have been feeding the tomatos General hydroponics Vegan compost tea at 3/4 strength. They appeared to have been thriving with that and I was just getting ready to try feeding at full strength, but all the tomatos are looking too sickly to try that now.

To me, they look as if they have been overwatered, but I'm not entirely sure. I don't believe I have overwatered them. I have been keeping the coco moist, but certainly not water logged. I've been watering on average once every three to four days. Before I water I always feel the surface of the coco and lift the container up, making sure it feels noticeably lighter and the coco feeling slightly moist between my fingers.

I would appreciate any second opinion or advice on how to save my tomatos.
Thanks

[dubwise]

I dont use coco....I use perlite/vermiculite and when I've overwatered, my plants look like that. I feel your pain.

[Sojourner]

Originally Posted by dubwise

I dont use coco....I use perlite/vermiculite and when I've overwatered, my plants look like that. I feel your pain.

Yeah, it was probably a bad idea to go the coco route here. I had been wanting to switch my growroom from soil to coco for a while after reading through the whole H3ad goes Coco thread.

I was planing on starting some of my witche's weed and camelot kush in coco, but I thought I should give it a test run with something else, just to make sure I got it down. I thought I had everything going just well, when for some reason everything took a turn for the worse very quickly.

I tried to do everything right with the coco, I PH checked the nutrient mix, always right around 5.8-6.3, which seemed perfectly fine. I've always had success in the past feeding my veggies Vegan compost tea or fox farm Big Bloom.

Right now I have transplanted half of the seedlings to larger containers using my usual potting soil. They all still look pretty bad, but I'm hopeful some of them will make it.

I'd still appreciate any help, either just on what went wrong, or how to better save my seedlings.

Thanks

[buckeye-leaf]

ive grown 'maters for many years and mostly they thrive in just regular old tilled dirt. indoors they can be really finicky and i see your growin cherry, indoors they do really shitty bud pretty much a waste of time.

[Sojourner]

Originally Posted by buckeye-leaf

ive grown 'maters for many years and mostly they thrive in just regular old tilled dirt. indoors they can be really finicky and i see your growin cherry, indoors they do really shitty bud pretty much a waste of time.

I wasn't intending to grow them inside the full duration, just to veg a little bigger and plant outside in my garden. I normally just buy tomatos at the local nursery mid may, but they never really have that big of a selection and are a little pricey

I wanted to start some inside early, both to have more variety and as a test run of coco. I'm pretty sure I've only lost about half the tomatos, as some of them after transplant are starting to perk up more.

I would like maybe some input on what went wrong, because otherwise the only lesson I learned is don't try to grow tomatos in coco coir. The wilting and everything looks very similar to what happens when seedlings get overwatered. But I'm pretty much certain I didn't overwater, if anything they might of gotten slightly less water then they should have.

[10k]

Are the worst ones getting a little mushy at the base of the stem then flopping over ?
If so, I believe they're damping off.

I would have started the seedlings in a good seed started soil, for transplant outdoors after carefully hardening them off to the sunlit climate.

hth

I've had great success with tomatoes in coir, I don't believe it's the fault of the coco.

[Sojourner]

I lost about 10 seedlings, but most of them recovered after I transplanted them in larger containers and increased the nutrients. I have 44 tomato plants all outside and doing excellent. I'll be posting a thread in this gardening forum sometime in the next week detailing my vegetable garden


Heres a couple pictures of just a few of my tomatos now

Tomatos need full days light and do not over water.... you either are getting nutrient burn or watering during the daylight instead of the early morning ..... the wilting typically occurs from over watering

[Stondestmanaliv]

tomato is a weed, almost no nutrients.