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I have been gardening on and off for a few years but I am pretty much still a beginner. We just bought our first home and I am determined to have a real vegetable garden. I have done alot of reading but have no real experience. I have no idea what I am doing wrong. Here are some of the issues I am having:

* My tomato plants look horrible. I believe it's leaf mold/blight. They turn yellow, curl up and then die. I cut off everything affected and spray with a mixture of soap, oil and baking soda every few days. It keeps coming back and spreading.

*Some of my tomato fruits have little green worms. I spray with that abpve mixture, but that's pretty much all I do for pesticides. Not sure what else to do.

*I directly sowed some pepper, eggplant, and tomato seeds. I live in florida. I sowed in February. The seedlings germinated, and then grew really slow. They are still tiny with just their second set of leaves. What's up with that? Shouldn't they be bigger now? I have been feeding with miracle grow every couple of weeks.

*I have some small corn plants. They look like they may have some sort of pest. Little holes in the leaves and some debris, may be larvae. I spray these plants with my aforementioned mixture.


Any help and suggestions are greatly appreciated. I am trying to keep it as natural and cheap as possible but I am at the point that I will try anything to get some food out of this garden!

Welcome to the forum.

A few thoughts

What kind of soil prep did your do?

A soil test would be a good idea. In fact have 2 done - one for pH and nutrients and another for pathogens. Don't fertilize or otherwise amend the soil unless you know what is lacking. Too much of a good thing is not a good thing.

Are the tomato varieties that you are having problems with suitable to your region. Florida has multiple growing regions.

I live in south Louisiana and have not had much luck direct sowing tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. I either purchase starts or start seeds indoors in January/February for planting in the garden March/April.
adding Miracle Grow will not help.

If your soil pH is not right the plants are incapable of absorbing the available nutrients. That is why a soil test is really called for.

The issues with your tomatoes - the leaves - may be a soil born virus. That is why the test for pathogens is needed.

You can have all of that done through your County Extension Office. Hope fully your extension system is responsive. When you bring the soil samples in for testing also bring - a leaf from the tomatoes, an infested tomato and a leaf from your corn. May sure to package them separately in zip locks or sealed jars.

Good luck

Florida is a challenging place to grow vegetables! Even the "experts" aka the big farms spend a fortune and do all kinds of very intensive practices just to produce a crop despite the onslaught of insects and diseases that mild climate encourages. Don't feel bad that direct sowing seeds for tomatoes and eggplant in February didn't work out as I think it would have to be an almost perfect year for that to produce good results.

Some of the more experienced folks in Central and Southern Florida seem to plant large tomato transplants (8-10 inches tall) in October-December with an expected harvest of February-May until diseases and insect pressure put an end to their plants.

Can you post some large, clear, in-focus photos of what your plants look like?

Can you be more specific about what part of Florida you are in (and can you please add this information to your Profile)?

Also I will add that sometimes you get a good result with the County Extension office, and sometimes, they only know what advice to give to large scale farmers that use strong chemicals, and their knowledge will not translate to home gardening. Hopefully you have a good experience.

If the tomato leaves are yellow and curl up then you may have tomato yellow leaf curl. The link is below. It is a virus and you can't really do anything about it except pull the plant and grow a resistant variety like championII. Since the virus came out a couple of years ago new varieties have been developed with resistance.

https://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r783103311.html
https://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell. ... Table.html

Tomato seeds will germinate at 50 degrees but will grow slow.

Pepper and Eggplant really like it to be 70's at night unless you use a heat mat and they like 80 degree days or they will grow very slowly. February was probably too early to start them. Especially since it was unusually cold this year. My peppers that I sowed in November only started producing in March.

A few corn will probably not be enough. Corn are heavy feeders and they need to be planted in a block. 8ftx8ft is a decent size. I plant at least 60-80 seeds. Corn takes up a lot of space. Each plant will need to be 12-18 inches apart in all directions so they will have room to grow.

As Elizabeth says, soil preparation is very important. If you put in time in advance, get the soil test, add the compost and the recommended fertilizer and pH correction. Realize it is best if you do this a couple of months before you plant or at a minimum give it 6 weeks for everything to blend in. If you want to be organic ask for organic recommendations. If you want to plant right away. Balance what you plant. Heavy feeders will need supplements as in side dressings of fast fertilizer ie water soluble fish emulsion or miracle grow if you want to see healthy plants.

Your plants are being attacked because they are not healthy for whatever reason. This is also a peak month for bugs aphids, caterpillars, snails, slugs, white flies. Around May and June the spider mites will be out.

I live in Hawaii with a 365 day growing season, that means bugs and thugs are always lurking. I find spraying to be expensive and counter productive. The more you spray, the more you have to spray.

The best way to get around the bugs is to feed your soil first. Keep adding the compost every time you plant and go easy on the fertilizer. This is where the soil test has helped the most.

Plant a diversified garden and attract beneficial insects.

I can plant slightly out of season to avoid the peak insects. If you can do that it can help a lot.

Scout the garden and take care of problems early. Pick off bugs while there are only a few. I use alcohol as my main insecticide and fungicide. Don't spray in the heat of the day. It is cheap, easy to use and takes care of 90% of the problems.

I go out early to water my garden and I stomp on slugs and snails or put them in a ziploc with salt to be tossed in the trash later. When I water, I shoot the bottom of the leaves to blast off pests, mostly white flies now.

Plants that are sickly get yanked, I usually have a lot of other plants waiting for a spot in the garden.

Pick your plants well. Tomatoes, eggplant and peppers are popular but remember they are also in the same family and will share the same diseases and bugs. If there is no problem, it does not matter, but when you do have problems they will all be affected. Choose varieties suited to your area. This is the time to plant them.

Make sure you give each plant the space it needs to grow. Crowding them leads to more disease and pest problems.

I have a few simple pest control rules

1. What is the threshold? How much damage is acceptable.
Since I have roses, gardenia, plumeria, orchids, and jasmine (pikake) I have to tolerate thrips since I am not willing to get rid of these plants and I don't want to have to spray them constantly.

2. Use the least toxic methods first
Hand picking slugs, snails, and bugs. Routinely shooting the bottom of the leaves when I water.
Remove sickly plants and cut back infested plants.

3. Scouting and attracting beneficial insects
I look at the plants every time I am out there for damage and under the leaves for pests. I plant nectar and host plants to trap bugs and attract beneficial insects. I have flowering plants year round to provide nectar for bees and beneficial insects.

4. If hand picking does not work and geckos, birds, and beneficial insects do not control the problem then
I have to choose intervention
a. First identify the pest or disease and use the correct treatment. Alcohol works 90% of the time for
light infestations
b. Control ants put out ant bait
c. I have no toads, so I am stuck with using snail bait but I switch baits between sluggo and
metaldeyde.
d. In humid weather, to prevent fungal problems. I will spray with a fungicide weekly
Mulch to control splashing and take off the bottom leaves from the tomatoes. Make sure the plants
have enough air circulation.
e. If the chosen treatment does not give control then
escalate to another product or method.
f. Take the plant out to prevent spreading the problem. Rotate to some other plant family.

If you prepare the soil, choose the right cultivars and plant them with the right spacing at the right time and you grow healthy plants, they will be more resistant to pests and disease.

Thank you so much for all the wonderful replies! Lots of great information.

I am going to try to take some good up close pictures when I get home from work tomorrow.

As far as soil preparation, I did like none. I am gardening in home made raised beds. I bought bagged soils. I mixed peat, potting soil, manure and compost. I am using soaker hoses for watering. The bed that I am having the tomato leaf problem is mulched with leaves. My other beds are not mulched yet.

As far as the tomato varieties, I have no idea. I did little research. I just got what they had at the local garden center. I have noticed I have a couple of different varities and one of them is virtually unaffected.

I live in Central Florida, USDA zone 9B. It's in the 90's during the day now.

rawradisaurous wrote:As far as soil preparation, I did like none. I am gardening in home made raised beds. I bought bagged soils. I mixed peat, potting soil, manure and compost. I am using soaker hoses for watering.

One thing to point out (in case I haven't painted enough doom and gloom ) is that some of the bagged peat, potting soil, manure, and compost at big box stores especially in the $1-2 range is not really what they say. Apparently there are no legal standards, so they can put anything in these bags.

If, however, you bought Black Kow manure, one of the better potting soils, peat from Premier or other reputable company, and mushroom or other high quality compost, then you may be in very good shape soilwise.

You mention that daytime temperatures right now are in the 90's. When daytime temperatures are consistently in the 90's and overnight temperatures stubbornly refuse to drop below 70, then tomatoes generally tend not set fruit as the pollen gets denatured. Also, high humidity further exacerbates this issue, causing pollen to clump.


My first year gardening, I built a 6' x 12' garden bed out of landscape timbers, filled it with a plethora of products, and planted tomatoes from the big box store. THEN I started reading and found out all the things I'd done that I wish I'd done differently.

Heat resistant tomatoes are the way to go in Southern areas HeatwaveII, Arkansas Traveler, Solar Fire, Creole, Florida 91, Sun Master can still set in the 90's with adequate water. The cherry tomatoes tend to do better than large tomatoes, sunsugar, sungold, and sweet 100 produce in the heat. Not all of these will produce in extreme heat, but they will perform in hot weather.

Florida extension service has developed heat resistant tomatoes and you can probably get seed from them.
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hs1189

Shading helps. 50% shadecloth works well.


I grew tomatoes in a homemade earthbox (18 gallon rubbermaid) with a 5 gallon reservoir . It was the best way to grow tomatoes and keep them from wilting in the middle of the day and it actually uses less water.

Most bell peppers will stop producing in high heat, but hot peppers will still set as will eggplant.

Raised beds work well but you do have to balance your planting mix. Mel's formula works for most people.
https://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/mels-mix/

Hang in there! There's a lot to learn when you start gardening and there can be a lot of failed experiments until you know what you are doing. All of us have killed some plants along the way.

thoughts about your situation: Your soil mix sounds very rich, but very dense and moisture holding. If you look at the Mel's mix, it says 1/3 vermiculite. Vermiculite is a mineral that is added to help keep the mixture loose and free draining, and keep it from compacting. Your potting soil would have some in it, but all the other ingredients are heavy and will tend to compact and hold water, excluding air. That makes good conditions for fungal diseases and pests and not for healthy plants.

You have to garden for your climate and seasons. Once your daytime temps are staying in the 90's, it is probably too late for tomatoes, except some of the heat resistant varieties. People think of tomatoes as a summer thing and that is true for much of the temperate US. But you are really subtropical (all those Christmas card pictures full of snow aren't very relevant to you either ).

Here's a zone 9 vegetable planting guide: https://www.thevegetablegarden.info/reso ... g-schedule It says plant tomatoes Feb - April or in Aug to grow through the fall. That would be when to put transplants in the ground.

RE: directly sowed some pepper, eggplant, and tomato seeds. I live in florida. I sowed in February. The seedlings germinated, and then grew really slow. They are still tiny with just their second set of leaves.

I start hundreds of plants indoors from seed every year. I would not direct sow any of the things you named in the ground. To do well, they need just the right conditions, heat, steady sun/light, nice loose soil, enough water, but not too much, etc. It is really hard to maintain all those conditions in your garden for as long as these need. Quicker growing, hardier things like lettuce, chard, spinach can be direct sown in the garden. For you getting started, I would suggest that starting things from seed is a whole other learning curve. You would be better off while you are learning how to grow plants, to just buy well started plants from a good local nursery (not big box!). Once you have a year or two experience and are confident of your ability just to grow plants, you can think about starting things from seed, but you will need to be willing to invest in a little bit of basic equipment like heat mats. And yes, your tomato and pepper plants should be doing way better. I would give up on those, they didn't make it. I started pepper seeds indoors about the 1st of Feb and tomato seeds indoors about the 20th of Feb. All of them are now big plants, at least 6" tall for the peppers and more than a foot tall for the tomatoes, with blossoms and even some baby fruits on them. So unfortunately, I have to suggest pitching all those and buying some well started plants.

If you are buying transplants now, look for hot weather stuff. That would include peppers, okra, sweet potato, southern pea, squash/cucumber/melons (all in the same family), beans.

Good luck, post photos, keep in touch and we will help you get to where you start having successes and it gets more fun!

I wante to let you guys know what I used alot of the advice you have given and my garden already looks better. Thanks so much!

The University of Florida is your Land Grant University. I found this vegetable gardening guide. Lots of good information on soil prep. Scroll down for planting dates. Scroll down more for recommended varieties.

Glad your garden is doing better.

Good luck