I rent my home so when I first planted the cherry tomato seeds in my front yard the landlord saw and got mad. I moved the plant to this pot but the next day it started looking like this. My front yard is made of claysoil, and I used organic soil for the pot. Idk what I did wrong.
I live in south eastern Texas, my zone is 9b.
by Neither_Yam3397
13 Comments
It’s very thirsty.
Look bone dry and probably past the point of return unfortunately
The pot probabaly got hot. Watering in the middle of the day is worse when if you have black pot. The water holds onto the heat much longer and basically cooks the roots.
Afternoon shade is the next step. Try to keep the pot from getting too hot.
Generally you don’t want to water container plants at night. During the night, the roots try to respirate oxygen. So you don’t want to drown them. Watering in the early morning is better.
If it bounces back depends on what happened to it. If it’s just transplant shock with a bit of under watering it should take a day or three to bounce back. If the roots got cooked, it might never recover. Look at the furthest leaves and if they turn mushy that’s a sign the whole plant is dying.
Regardless, you should water in the morning deeply until water comes out the bottom and put the pot in the shade in the afternoon. Don’t write it off yet.
It needs water like last week
I would water it and move the pot into a shady spot for a while. It looks like it has transplant shock. Sometimes direct high intensity light/ heat makes transplants wilt.
You the person who showed a pic of withered leaves on top? Personally I would get a new tomato plant, and start over with all the knowledge you acquired. When plants go through too much shock like the one pictured, it stunts the plant and recovery time can affect you in terms of several weeks to 1 month, affect your fruit blooms etc.
Yah looks bone dry. Yikes!
Pick it up and see if it needs water, that’s how to do it 😀 it’s pretty easy to figure out. Black pots don’t work in direct sunlight either. So you need to block the sun from the pot.
Sorry about your landlord, I have some rentals and give them plants 😄
So you have stabbed this dry. The roots have to get situated in the new dirt. It is a constant, daily water. Just put your finger in the dirt.If the dirt is wet an inch under the surface, then no water is needed. If it’s dry, then add some water. Don’t ever overwater in the beginning.It will kill the plant.
$10 will get u a bag of perlite and tomato fertilizer, repull the plant, mix that dirt 50/50 with the perlite, fully saturate the mix, repot the plant deep with just a few inches above ground. Then either bring the plant inside by a window or give it shade intill it get its footing. It cant handle the direct sun right after stress.
Water it a couple of times a day until the water starts running out the bottom of the pot. Make sure you have a drain pan at the bottom and only stop watering when the drain pan is full. It will be impossible to over water if you are using potting soil in Texas. That stuff drains like a tea bag. Personally, I would start over with a new plant from the nursery. Mix in at least 25% clay topsoil. The clay provides a lot of nutrients and adds water retention. Don’t feel bad about starting over, it’s still very early in the season.
Yes. You can actually use mostly topsoil. I would go with half and half topsoil to potting soil. The potting soil will keep everything loose but doesn’t add much in terms of nutrients. And I would also recommend using miracle grow tomato fertilizer. It’s well balanced and designed for tomatoes so it takes away the guess work. As far as sun, a half to three quarters of a day of direct sun is perfect for Texas. And try to keep some moisture in the pan. If you let them dry out completely in a hot climate you can get splitting. It’s kind of like chapped lips. The skin gets hard when they dry out then splits when they fill back up with moisture. Tomato cages are great for bracing and there is no reason to prune other than keeping the plant neat. Don’t worry about controlling suckers. They just give you more tomatoes.