Topic: Should I throw out my tomatoes and start again?

[early weeder]

Help!  I sowed tomato seed nice and early this year - Lily of the Valley on Jan 31st - Diplom on Feb 15th
They started in the propagator, moved to the window sill, then as they weren't getting enough light (no south facing window in this house) and were getting leggy I moved them in to the polytunnel. In spite of keeping them in the cold frame inside the poly and covering with fleece every night they got a touch of frost damage. However I think some of the leaf damage is blight as in spite of removing lower leaves it keeps appearing on new ones - and it looks like blight .   Can I remove all blighty leaves and plant then into the bed really deep or should I just call it a day, put them in the bin and go and buy some more plants??

[Paulines7]

Sorry to hear about your tomatoes, early weeder. 

Are you able to post some pictures of them?  Someone may then be able to tell you if it is blight, some other disease or frost damage. 

I thought tomato blight started on the stalks rather than the leaves but I am not any sort of expert on these matters.  Hopefully someone else will be along soon to help.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Blight can start anywhere, but May is a bit early. Post pics and we'll have a look.

[early weeder]

Thanks for quick replies. I've not posted photos before so hope this works. 

[BarriedaleNick]

I would suspect some nutrient deficiency rather than blight at this stage of the year.  Blight will hill the plant very rapidly so it will soon be obvious!  As the others said - post a pic or two.

Edit - Ah you did.  Not blight - in fact they look pretty ok to me with just a bit of environmental stress probably down to wind or cold.  I'd give em a dilute feed or pot them on.  Pretty sure they will be fine.

[Bonsai Si]

Bit of Epsom salt sprayed on them might help or some Liquid Seaweed maybe?

[squeezyjohn]

Absolutely!  Mine often look like that ... in fact they do this year!  Once they've been transplanted to the ground they'll take off within a couple of weeks and the new leaves should be lush and green compared to the ones that have been subject to sitting in a pot in a greenhouse for too long.

I would wait til March to sow tomato seeds next time if you're planning on having them outside.  Maybe a little earlier if you plan on their final location being protected like a greenhouse or polytunnel.

[early weeder]

Thank you so much all of you. I'm very relieved
I have had to ditch tomatoes in the past when the blight was making the fruit go black. Was reluctant to give up on these as I had coaxed them for so long. Will plant them into the polytunnel bed with some muck and see how we go.
 I was trying out the limits of early sowing this year but was a bit too optomistic!  We are up quite high, in a bit of a frost pocket and it's very windy but the polytunnel makes lots possible. I tried tomatoes outside but they didn't do very well so will continue with them in the poly.
I thought next year I might try sowing just a few tomatoes every couple of weeks so I can hit the balance between getting too leggy and being so late the blight gets them.
Thanks everyone
back out into the sunshine.

[caroline7758]

I think a lot if pople have had problems this year with plants shooting up in that sunshine in April and then getting a shock when it went cold and windy. I've got some very leggy tomatoes which are not looking good at all. I'm going to try planting them horizontally with the tops up and see what happens- can't bear to throw them away no matter how bad they look!

[squeezyjohn]

That's a good idea ... I've planted my tomatoes the last couple of years by taking off all but the top 6 leaves and burying the rest of the stem good and deep ... it's made for good strong tomato plants.  The buried stems just make more roots when underground.  I think having the original rootball deeper in the ground means it has more moisture than if they were planted at the original depth in the pot.