Hi, me again. I just posted that I had a lot of water drowned plants from a big rain storm for a week, I went out this morning and everything looked fine. Eight hours later everything looks like it’s about to die. My cabbages which have been so sturdy have basically disintegrated in the course of a day.
My kale and romaine (romaine had bolted) has all shriveled up. My tomatoes which were very bushy have now just completely shrunken up and are falling over.
I just fertilized everything to absolute death in hope I can get some of the nutrients back from the soil, but I also saw this weird round pelleted soil around some of my plants, is this from a pest I don’t know about? I have had some white flies in the past but I didn’t know if they can cause this level of destruction to plants.
Any ideas or ways to possibly recover?
by Purple_Coach_2887
38 Comments
I think your problem resides in your sentence « just fertilized everything to absolute death »
They got drowned only time will fix. Soil needs to dry out
You probably fried your plants with too much fertilizer.
Edit:
To possibly recover, ironicallyyou may need to wash out the soil with water to dilute the fertilizer. But that might leach more into the roots. Tough call. If pelletized try to scoop it out.
I also agree if the ground isn’t waterlogged and you really did use a lot you could have burned them with fertiliser. Rain won’t wash the nutrients in the earth away for future.
Can you show us a pick of the ‘pelleted soil’?
The round pelleted soil is possibly from jumping worms (it’s their droppings). They deplete the top few inches of soil of nutrients, but so far I’ve only seen this impact the germination of direct sown seeds, rather than more mature plants.
Kale is a cool season crop. Mine is on it’s way out now, so it may be getting past its season where you are. Did you fertilize before they wilted? If so you probably over-fertilized. If they were already wilted when you fertilized, maybe someone nearby sprayed pesticides?
The pelletized soil looks maybe like [jumping worm castings](https://warren.cce.cornell.edu/home-page/gardening-landscape/jumping-worm). They can do a number on the soil, but not overnight (I don’t think!). Though, I think they make the soil more porous, which would help with drainage… so… not sure. Hard to tell from the photos – are they in raised beds or in the ground? Probably just too much water. Not sure where you’re located, but if it’s also hot and humid, plus the uncovered soil, can be a recipe for disease. I made that mistake last year and lost almost all my tomatoes to blight. Ugh!
The only thing that tends to mass-kill plants this fast is poison. Too much fertilizer is poison–never exceed the limits given on the label, especially if you use an inorganic fertilizer.
For future reference, rain does not wash away all the nutrients unless your soil has zero organic matter. (Otherwise, how would nature survive?)
> Any ideas or ways to possibly recover?
Almost certainly irrecoverable, with possible long-term soil damage, meaning you may have to wait several months to a year to plant something else or it may just die too.
>I also saw this weird round pelleted soil around some of my plants, is this from a pest I don’t know about?
Sounds like jumping worms to me, an invasive worm.
I have them, they seem mostly benign, but it looks like you don’t have much in the way of mulch, which is what they primarily eat, ravenously. They aren’t bothering my plants currently but I’ve heard of them negatively affecting plants by grazing their roots/disturbing them in some way.
Some people mix powdered mustard with water and pour it into their garden beds which drives the worms to the surface, where they hand pick them out. Other people use tea tree seeds and make a similar solution and apply that to the garden, which will kill the worms. The tea tree seed solution is fairly indiscriminate and it’s known to harm fish and amphibians with it’s application, however.
But you seem to have a lot of issues going on at once with drainage issues and likely overfertilization. I see some landscape fabric in one of your photos and if that’s all throughout your bed I don’t know if that’s doing you any favors, either, whether by concentrating worm activity/emergence near plant roots or messing with drainage.
These plants don’t look dead. Give them a couple days and see what happens
Do you live near agriculture? Could it be herbicide drift?
It’s weird that people didn’t catch the word “after” in your post. It’s wild that it wilted so quickly. Maybe someone near you used roundup or some weed killer? Is that possible?
My plants looked wilted like that after a massive hail storm. I applied Neptune’s Harvest and ignored my garden out of sadness. A few weeks later, most things bounced back.
You mentioned it is a community garden. How do the other plots look?
I know you fertilized after so I won’t even mention it, but I didn’t see if you replied your temps for today ?
My opinion purely based on off the photos – just drama queens being drama queens in high sun heat. Don’t look like there is any mulch or real covering like straw so even though the soil was water logged by a storm recently and it does look moist – it doesn’t look happy. Mulch really helps w that , making that too few inches of soil just soft that really gives you great moisture and temperature control.
I see tomato’s being tomato’s; heck I’d wager that even now as the day is winding down they’re starting to perk up. I see marigolds doing the same I think in the corner ?
As for the greens – it sounds like today was their hot one and without that good ground cover or even shade their soil likely got too hot.
Heat looks like what these pictures are really telling me.
The post-mortem fertilizing I wouldn’t stress that atm. Really just throw some mulch on the plant babies and relax let nature be nature. Every insect is a response to a response to a response. Meaning: aphids which suck , call out wasps which rock, which increases pollination. Often times we don’t need to intervene a whole lot on our gardens; what we do is often really for our benefit. It makes us feel better. But really who here hasn’t seen a tomato plant mock us by growing in a crack of concrete where your precious plant baby just won’t grow dammit! I’m with you; I’m with you all the time. It’s ok sit back and enjoy the garden.
If things did die , that’s the cool part you can just keep trying. Over…. And over …. And over …. And over …
Have fun and good luck.
TLDR: by dusk these plants are gonna be perking right back up
Edit: I can see the pic 1 now, I couldn’t before – still saying heat damage. What pic 1 made me realize is that soil I saw was actually mulch on black top? I’d maybe add a bit more ? I stand by heat being the culprit for sure tho
I can almost guarantee you this is 2,4-d or dicamba drift. Note the grassy weeds you have look perfectly fine. Those are broad leaf herbicides.
If I were to guess I’d say the city/county were spraying that easement or very near by. I would also bet they’re using Ester based herbicide because it’s much cheaper. I would also bet that becaue would be it’s been pretty hot out Ester based herbicides would be a terrible idea becaise they have such a high vapor pressure they evaporate into a cloud and drift for a *loooong* way. Tomatos are extremely sensitive to both those chemicals. You even say the word dicamba withing leaf-ear shot they’ll practically melt.
Sorry man. That really does suck. Probably not telling you anything you’ve not already read or suspected having your garden right up against any roads or “maintained landscapes” isn’t a great idea. People freak out about metals from tires or whatever but this is the kinda crap I worry about. Some 10 dollar an hour county summer job hire spraying whatever amount of whatever on whatever.
That breaks my heart
What are your outdoor temperatures looking like?
Zone and temp when you noticed?
Sometimes during the middle of the day during the hottest time my garden will look quite sad but it always bounces back by end of day and looks great all night and morning before it gets back to a solid 95 degrees
I think it’s just wilted from the heat
I agree with the people saying it was likely pesticide. Your plants were way too healthy to all start looking this bad this abruptly otherwise. There’s no way plants could get this bad in 8 hours otherwise.
seen something like that once with black walnut contamination in the soil. plants were fine one day, the next i noticed one just dropping dead, a few days later i noticed several more doing the same. came to the conclusion that the plants were dying one by one because their roots were finally reaching the layer of soil that the contamination had accumulated in.
point is its likely something chemical, and because the weeds and other plants look fine i’m guessing its something in the soil that your deeper rooting plants are just now reaching. could be herbicide contaminated soil got mixed into the grow beds.
Hey hey! If you noticed this in the middle of the day it might be fine. Plants wilt during the heat and come out of it when it cools off. So dramatic! I’m concerned about your fertilizer comment though. That could be really bad if you over fertilized. Especially if it’s pretty hot. Good luck. 👍
The last 2 years I have had this same thing happen, lost my garden from a deluge of rain. When that happened all my plants turned yellow and slowly died. It’s weird that yours look wilted.
https://preview.redd.it/55x7qd3zr68f1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=55bee4ba031ccbe5b99935eff40bdfb5402b641b
If they were healthy 8 hours ago, my first thought is someone prayed killer over them.
Just to be asses or they thought it was funny.
Maybe not, but that’s quite a shift in 8 hours.
Perhaps it’s some sort of wilt disease?
Water them
Hey friend, I live in Virginia and these homies are just hot. Check them in the morning.
That’s weird! I hope they rebound!
A handy tip, if your plants are in shock like this after planting, use some liquid B2 vitamin. It helps the plant pick up after being in shock. We had this happen a lot in Redding, Willow creek and Garberville with our plants. Temps in those areas were always 90-106 in the shade in summer. If your soil is too hot from fertilizer, I would suggest just using inert soil in the future and making compost teas. It’s easier to gauge how much nitrogen your plants are receiving and you give them beneficial bacteria when you make tea. It will build up the soil and keep your plants healthier longer. Micos works good too, to help your plants adjust quicker. Just sprinkle some around the hole before planting your veggies. Good luck friend!
This happened to me the last two days of nothing but downpour. They looked super sad this morning, but we looked at them like maybe an hour or two ago and they look like they’re coming back…. I have high hopes🤞🤞🤞
These done look dead, they look heat stressed or simply overwatered – dont water them a few days and they should perk back up
Might be herbicide damage. Check this University of Tennessee institute of agriculture website that shows what the types of damage looks like on tomatoes.
https://herbicidestewardship.tennessee.edu/diagnosing-suspected-herbicide-damage-in-tomatoes/
Hey, a midwest gardener here.
I see this happen often in my garden after we get heavy rainstorms, especially if followed by hot and humid weather. This exact thing just happened to me today, and my whole garden looked horribly wilted this morning and afternoon. Here’s how you fix it:
Do nothing.
Seriously. The plants are probably stressed after heavy rain and a sudden increase in sunlight. Plants tend to wilt when the environmental conditions suddenly change, and they just need time to recover. Don’t do anything. If you start trying to add fertilizer, or do heavy pruning, or anything else, you are just further stressing the plants more. Give them time to figure it out. Us gardeners must be careful not to “kill with kindness!!”
Try checking the plants at night. If you have environmental stress, they tend to perk up once the sun goes down. If the plants are wilted at night, then you could consider pests or herbicide poisoning.
My plants look like this during the middle of the day in extreme heat. No amount of water fixes the wilt but once the sun sets, it perks back up immediately.
that just looks like my tomato plants mid day. its just hot asf and they want water. an hour or so after i water mine they look like nothing happened.
Hi dear. You have mole crickets. They eat roots. It rained and they started eating roots higher up as the lower ground flooded. The little balls of dirt at the base is a characteristic sign of them. You can try to drown them with soapy water. There probably won’t be more eggs hatching until next year.
It’s hard to tell from these pictures exactly what it might be, but it could be herbicide drift. If the leaves just look limp and perk back up after watering, they were likely dehydrated. But, if the leaves are sort of curling in on themselves and generally unhealthy and any fruit looks misshapen, it could be herbicide drift. If so, I’m sorry 🙁
Btw the pelleted soil might be from asian jumping worms. Did you get those plants from reliable sellers or seed them yourself? If not it couldve come from the nursery. Those worms are bad news
Have the same problem in 10b, we just got hit by a heat wave. They’ll gradually come back, just monitor them and maybe think of providing some shade if time is allowed. I have most of my plants under a canopy now to help revitalize themselves but once summer hits, they better be ready or else I’ll just grow some more this winter