Almost positive I over fertilized. The miracle grow I had said to reapply 7 to 11 days. The plant hasn't grown an inch in weeks. Full sun. San marzano.
I've never done this before. Was trying a new hobby. I have a soil tester to check moisture and it's not top dry or too wet. Used neem oil on the plant to make sure no pests. Do I just need to wait for warmer days?
by SpicyWokHei
5 Comments
Could be overfertilized,it looks like the leaves are “burned”. How’s the weather been by you? Has it been cold? Nights in the 40s? If so then that could be contributing for sure. Regardless it’s important you don’t let this get you all bent out of shape. Gardening as a hobby is one big learning process. You aren’t going to be great at it the first time you grow a plant, nobody is. But you’re learning and that’s most important, it’s all trial and error with the little things. Honestly you could just go to the local nursery/Home Depot and grab a new plant for 3 bucks if you want, I’ve done it before it’s no big deal. If not just give this plant some time, back up on the fertilizer (maybe fertilize it once every 3-4 weeks) and see what happens, good luck and try to enjoy the process.
Sometimes gardening is just a test of patience. This plant looks like it can recover. Just make sure it’s getting enough water and see how it’s doing in a week, 2 weeks, 1 month. If new green growth comes in at the top you should be good! If not then at least you tried and hopefully learned what not to do next time. Wishing you the best!
Your plant is fine. Just talk to it, play a little music and keep your hands off. No fertilizer, water if the soil feels dry and just let it be. It’ll grow. Sometimes we can do too much, as I have learned from experience. Lows of 50’s won’t kill the plant.
I fertilize mine once when I plant and then again every 3-4 weeks depending on my memory. Watering them is the key to success.
Happy growing!
Don’t ever throw in the towel! If you want the garden it takes some work and some patience. What growing zone are you in? (If you don’t know you can look it up or you can just say what state and what part of state ,north or south, you are in. Burned leaves could definitely be over fertilized. The amount you apply is not always cut and dry back of the bag info. I always start with a half dose or less to begin with and see how it goes. I also strongly recommend organic fertilizer for your dry fertilizer. This is not to be “organic” as that’s not important like a lot of people will lead you to believe. The reason for this is to feed your soil long term. Synthetic fertilizers can actually hurt your soil over time by killing off beneficial microbes that help break it down to make it fertile. The synthetic stuff can also burn your plants and cause them to nutrient lock themselves where they no longer take up nutrients, which is what I believe may have happened here. Synthetic ferts are not a bad thing but you have to be careful with dosage. I recommend a water soluble synthetic, pretty much any will do along with the organic dry fertilizer which should be a good combo to keep your soil healthy but also give your plants the nutrients they need. Also, using higher nitrogen is good and fine, but when you start seeing flowers switch over to a higher phosphorus fertilizer. That will help buds and blooming (fruiting) when the process starts. Some claim it’s crucial, but even if you don’t do this just using a balanced fertilizer (like an all purpose) is fine too. You just want to make sure the fertilizer numbers, your NPK, the three numbers almost all fertilizers have, is all around the same number. For example, I use Dr. Earth all purpose fertilizer (dry organic) 2-2-2. I use that up until I see the first tiny little green tomato and switch over to dr earth tomato, vegetable, and herb 4-6-3. These are what work for me, you do not have to use these at all, it’s just an example. I also water these in with fish emulsion(specifically Alaska fish plant food 5-1-1) the higher nitrogen isn’t a huge deal, the plants still need the nitrogen but the slow feed dry fertilizer will slowly give the plants the other nutrients over time. Like I said, this is what works for me and I think this will generally work for just about everyone. It just takes some time. I watch a lot of gardening YouTube channels and most of my tips here are admittedly from Millennial Gardeners channel. I don’t follow anyone blindly, don’t get me wrong, but his tips over the past 7 years in my experience have worked for me. This all works for me in central Louisiana Zone 9A and it works for almost any vegetable.
Fellow northeasterner here in NY. I wouldn’t throw in the towel just yet. This plant isn’t thriving but it’s far from dead. Sometimes a change in routine is all it needs to bounce right back. Tomatoes, especially, are super resilient. Just take for example the giant batch of tomatoes that sprouted among the weeds and have now taken over a neglected corner of my yard. I don’t even water it and yet those plants are taller and healthier looking than anything I purposely planted. Makes you wonder if sometimes we overthink it. But that’s also the fun thing about this hobby, the trials and errors and learning the millions of different ways that you can take a tiny little seed and coerce it into providing food for you. Finding what works for you and then seeing something new and different and being determined to try it is what gets most gardeners through the long hard winters. One suggestion I have for you is to research the winter sown method. It was developed by a gardener in NY and for a while in the early 2000s she would mail tomato seeds to gardeners all over the country to try and learn. That was what I started with when I first got interested in gardening and it’s really foolproof, low tech, and produces strong plants right from the start.