Are they normal, or is there something wrong with the plant?
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Cinquefoil
- Full Member
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Sat Aug 15, 2015 7:31 am
- Location: Sydney, Australia
Leaves persistently turning yellow
I bought a sweet bite tomato plant with a few yellow leaves from a nursery and the yellow leaves have come back after I cut them off.
Are they normal, or is there something wrong with the plant?
Are they normal, or is there something wrong with the plant?
Your pot looks a bit small for a tomato and you have a ceramic pot on tile. Unless the weather is mild you have a lot of reflected heat.
Yellowing leaves on the bottom and it looks a bit like there is a purple cast to the leaves on top, but that may just be light.
I would go with a bigger pot (18 gallon. I use muck buckets and drill holes in them. If you are going to leave them on tile them some insulation helps too. I double pot but it is hard to find a pot to put an 18 gallon pot in. I put smaller pots in front of it, but you may not have room. While it isn't pretty, you can wrap the pot with sheets of styrofoam in the heat.
I cannot tell what kind of soil you are using, it looks like it is high in organics and compost. In pots, I would use potting soil, no more than 20% compost as that causes me water issues and compost where I can see wood fibers, is still sucking up nitrogen. In an 18 gallon pot you can either put in 3 cups of an organic fertilizer like tomato this is basically the earth box recipe. The fertilizer is banded. However, I found that there was not efficient use of the fertilizer this way and a lot of fertilizer left over. So, I switched to 1/2 cup of synthetic fertilizer as a started and side dressings of a 1-2 tablespoons at first flowering, first fruit, and monthly thereafter. I end up using the same amount of fertilizer but it is more efficient.
I think you plant is in too small a pot, getting too much reflected heat from a ceramic (uninsulated small pot) and tile and the purple leaves are usually a phosphorus deficiency which is common in seedlings that have not been uppotted soon enough but fixes with fertilizer and the yellow lower leaves could be from nitrogen deficiency or you media which if it is not potting soil and has a lot of compost in it, may be holding too much water or you are watering more and probably over watering a bit trying to 'fix it'. Which is also a common mistake people make thinking more water will help when it is actually making the plant sicker.
Yellowing leaves on the bottom and it looks a bit like there is a purple cast to the leaves on top, but that may just be light.
I would go with a bigger pot (18 gallon. I use muck buckets and drill holes in them. If you are going to leave them on tile them some insulation helps too. I double pot but it is hard to find a pot to put an 18 gallon pot in. I put smaller pots in front of it, but you may not have room. While it isn't pretty, you can wrap the pot with sheets of styrofoam in the heat.
I cannot tell what kind of soil you are using, it looks like it is high in organics and compost. In pots, I would use potting soil, no more than 20% compost as that causes me water issues and compost where I can see wood fibers, is still sucking up nitrogen. In an 18 gallon pot you can either put in 3 cups of an organic fertilizer like tomato this is basically the earth box recipe. The fertilizer is banded. However, I found that there was not efficient use of the fertilizer this way and a lot of fertilizer left over. So, I switched to 1/2 cup of synthetic fertilizer as a started and side dressings of a 1-2 tablespoons at first flowering, first fruit, and monthly thereafter. I end up using the same amount of fertilizer but it is more efficient.
I think you plant is in too small a pot, getting too much reflected heat from a ceramic (uninsulated small pot) and tile and the purple leaves are usually a phosphorus deficiency which is common in seedlings that have not been uppotted soon enough but fixes with fertilizer and the yellow lower leaves could be from nitrogen deficiency or you media which if it is not potting soil and has a lot of compost in it, may be holding too much water or you are watering more and probably over watering a bit trying to 'fix it'. Which is also a common mistake people make thinking more water will help when it is actually making the plant sicker.