Over fertilized my tomatos during transplant a couple weeks ago. I've been over watering to try to flush out the nitrogen and the burning has slowed. Wondering what to do now? Are these cooked and should I start over? Should I pinch off all the dead leaves? What are the chances I get fruit at all?
Second year attempting a garden. The lesson learned this year is less is more. Was going really good until I decided to get cute with the fertilizer.
by Rippin_Fat_Farts
38 Comments
Just remove the leaves that are damaged.
It’s a tomato. You could run it over with a car and it’d regrow and be fine.
It’ll probably be fine. Tomatoes are resilient!
They’re fine, tomatoes **want** to grow. I’m more worried about the level of soil in those bags. It should really be full to the very top to give your roots enough room to grow properly. It would’ve been best to start with it full but if I were you I’d remove the lower leaves and add more soil because tomatoes will root from their stems wherever they touch moisture/soil.
Tomatoes refuse to die
You’re doing fine it’s a tomato. Just remove the damaged leaves and blink and you’ll have tomatoes for the whole neighbourhood.
Small tomato plants are often dramatic when something changes quickly. They’ll bounce back!
They should be fine. Did you use the package recommended amount of fertilizer?
It’ll be fine. I recommend removing the lower leaves and filling your grow bag to the top with more soil. Tomatoes will grow more roots where the stem gets buried. Don’t half fill containers, you need to fill containers with soil to the top as you’re already limiting the root space by having it in a container. You’re limiting it even further by not filling it up all the way.
As others have said, your plants will be fine, especially since you’re looking after them so well with the flushing. I burned plenty when I was getting started back in the day, but they’re pretty darn resilient.
What sort of fertilizer are you using? I use fish fertilizer 5-1-1 on my starters and never worry about burns. I start with a quarter strength watering, then half strength after a couple weeks, then full strength around the month mark. Only issue I have is how quickly they outgrow their pots lol
Pfft you didn’t mess up, it’s just gardening. It’s all learning and experimenting and tweaking when things don’t work. A few fertilizer burns on the foliage are NOTHING. That’s still a super happy plant and you’re doing great!
See the bright green, healthy looking leaves at the center of each plant? That means they’re doing well, and that new-growth is coming out nicely!
Tomato plants don’t need all their leaves (it’s actually advisable to start to remove the lower leaves, as they get taller, as soil-splash from watering tends to spread disease). I’d just grab a pair of disinfected pruning shears, and remove the lower leaves one by one, until all the unhappy growth is gone, and/or you’ve reached about 1 ft/30 cm above the soil. Make sure the plant always has a solid few healthy leaves at the top, so it can keep photosynthesizing – so you might have to remove the lower leaves slowly, a bit at a time, as the plant grows.
Good luck, and enjoy your tomatoes! ☺️
You have a ton of room for soil in those bags. Chop off the lower branches and bury them. The plant will develop stronger roots, grow new healthy leaves and everything will be fine. Mine look like hell but I’m about to transplant so it will be ok 🙂
Those will be totally fine and you would likely want to remove stems that low anyway.
Doesn’t look like fertilizer damage. Looks like sun scald and over watering.
It truly doesn’t matter. Just keep going
Trim off the scraggly bottom branches. I trim those off mine regardless.
Tomatoes look like they should be weak, but they are like wolverines. I accidentally cut one in half last year and just taped it back together, and off it went. I’m not sure it even noticed.
Let them dry out 50% before watering to avoid damping off. Well fertilized plants use less water.
I did something similar… I fertilized my pear trees too early so instead of blossoms they leafed out and focused on growing branches. Kicking myself!
Tomatoes will be fine. You did the right thing by flushing out the fertilizer. There’s some damage to some leaves but pay more attention to the new growth, if the new leaves are healthy then you got nothing to worry about.
I don’t think they look that bad. I would guess that when you get them in full sun and summer temps they’ll be able to use more of those nutes and will keep recovering.
I snapped off one of my tomato stems right at the base by accident when getting ready to transplant it. It didn’t have a single root on it. I stuck the cut end in the soil a week ago and it looked like there was no way it would make it. The following day it looked like it had all but given up.
Today it looks like nothing even happened to it. It hasn’t grown in the last week like the other transplants…but it has mostly recovered back to where it was before the injury. Chances are you didn’t mess up nearly as bad as you think you did 🙂
your top leaves seem fine. cut off the bottom leaves, bury deep and it’ll grow roots.
I’d use fish fertilizer from now on. Almost 0% chance of causing damage unless you literally water with only fish fertilizer
Switch to a natural fertilizer in the future like worm castings or micro life.
Year after year I start tomato seedlings indoors and lovingly care for them for a month. Then I carefully harden them off and dote on them while they grow big and strong. But no matter how much care I give them, they do no better than the volunteer tomatoes that seem to spring up everywhere.
new growth looks just fine. when tomato leaves get damaged they dont recover, but if the new growth is coming in fine then it should be perfectly fine.
Don’t worry a rat ate all mine
Did you know the sewage treatment plant skims off the solids before treating the water. I toured a plant in high school science class. The solids left drying were covered in tomato plants.I guess tomatoes can take a lot and still survive.
They look legitimately fine. It’ll be OK.
Cut the bottom leaves and fill the pots to the top.
Just put it in different soil brotha
Prune the lower branches off, and more soil to your bags. No need to wait for healing. Tomatoes are not fine china, they are BDSM lovers. Make it hurt, Daddy.
Fill the bags and tamp down the soil pushing lightly towards the outer edges. This will help the soil shift and fill out the diameter of the bag better.
Bro tomatoes are about the easiest thing you could possibly grow. Literally do nothing and they’ll produce fruit.
A literal toddler could grow tomatoes. You didn’t fuck up anything.
Just putting this out there..first year growing a garden… tomatoes included. I had 16 plants and not enough room so I started picking and choosing the “best”….. I’ve been babying these “best”, and threw the sickly ones in my shed trash…… Well a week later I look and coming out of the trash in the dried out little plant is a flower…. Well damn I thought..so now he’s living in my flower bed next to the house as an experiment to see who comes out the strongest..the babied or the neglected 😄😄
Old leaves = old problems. As long as there is healthy new growth I don’t worry.
Tomato slips are a dime a dozen this time of year. No harm in buying new plants as an insurance policy and keeping these as well just in case they pull through.
You’re missing a basil plant. My potted tomatoes do well with a basil plant planted in the same pot. I scratch in a bit of bone meal and use fish fertilizer. Cal mag works well later in he season. You’re doing great.