Need to bring the tomato stoke back. Using a low nitrogen tomato fertilizer. The neighboring cherry tomatoes are loving it. The San Marzies are looking curled gray and ends are yellowing with brown spots. Too much water, too much fertilizer, too much love and care? Thank you in advance fellow gardeners
by chingaderobeavo
11 Comments
It’s hard to tell from the pic but if the gray is more on the purple side they might need phosphate? Maybe something with a balance NPK
I know this isn’t particularly helpful, but I’ve tried growing maybe 15 -20 types of tomatoes over the last few years, and Sam marzanos were by far the fussiest, especially when it came to watering. Keep it as consistent as possible and watch it for blossom end rot – they were the only variety I ever had that issue with, even next door to other varieties like you mention.
San Marzanos thrive in exactly one very specific region of Italy, that has very unique weather and soil conditions.
They fuss and get dramatic everywhere else in the world, which explains why your neighboring plants are thriving while these are struggling.
I don’t have any advice, but maybe looking into the nutrient balance in their native soil might help?
They look like they’ve been subjected to the cold to me. What is your low temperature?
These look like they were out in the cold for too long, have any chilly nights recently?
Ha, everyone complaining about San Marzanos when they did well for me. Probably because I am pretty bad about under fertilizing and live in a Mediterranean environment, same as West Coast. So ya, you might’ve made it too rich based on my experience and the replies. You can probably use your environment more to your advantage tbh.
I can’t grow big tomatoes at all if it makes anyone feel better. 🥲
Never again. I learned my lesson.
The things that made the most difference for my tomatoes were a.) Way less water and b.) Extra calcium (like bone meal)
I serious only watered 1-2X per week all last summer and had the best tomatoes yet. Even when it was 90F, I never watered more than every other day and typically only 2x per week. Maybe try cutting back on watering and see if that helps.
If you like San Marzano tomatoes, I would recommend trying Supremos. They are the same Roma type, but they’ve been much more successful for me than San Marzano. Terrific flavor.
Not enough phosphorus. Purple=dying for phosphate.
Tomatoes get streased out when temps go down into the 40s and 30s then jump back up into the 80s. Thats usually how they end up looking at extreme temp changes. very inconsistent watering causes them to look rough like this aswell which is usually the culprit with spring weather.
Also plant romas next time if you dont have green thumb, hybrids are significantly easier to grow.
Either cold damage or painfully hungry especially for phosphorus, which would also be worse in the cold. Too wet might exacerbate the issue as well.