Gardening Tips #6 - Tomatoes part 2

A couple of years ago, my friend Edward told me about a radio broadcast he'd been listening to.  Brian Minter (of Minter Gardens) was talking about growing tomatoes and in it he relayed that growing heirloom tomatoes was very tricky.  Today ... I agree with him.

Today I'm not sure if I am qualified to give tips on growing tomatoes.  Aside from the tomato that the cat sat on yesterday (thank you, Jack - she also killed two pumpkin plants!), I'm having a little bit of trouble with a few of my tomato plants.  Two of the cherry tomatoes (that I grew from suckers on my indoor plants from last fall) are NOT looking good at all.  Their leaves are going dark green with lighter green mottled spots, the leaves are curling and both of the plants look very hard doneby. 



Now, there are lots of great sites on the internet to tell you about tomatoes and the various diseases and problems they can have.  The closest I've come with this one is a phosphorus deficiency - but that's more of a purple cast to the leaves, and this is dark green and mottled.  But that's how I'm treating it for now and I'll see if giving it Miracle Grow helps.  Yes, I know, Miracle Grow is not organic and God knows what it's made of, but I'm familiar with it and it usually works.

This other little guy is showing more of the typical signs of phosphorus deficiency with the purple under it's leaves (this one was just watered - normally it's standing up straight and tall):


A few others are looking a tad singed along the edges - perhaps due to transplant stress or exposure, but perhaps due to too much fertilizer when I planted them - although how I could have deficiencies as well as fertilizer burn at the same time baffles me.

It's a constant learning curve.  Of course, after last year, I'm terrified of blight, so I'm spraying with copper spray.  I'll also let you know how that goes.

Anybody out there look at that top picture and know for sure what's wrong with it?

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