Tomato Growing Thread 2022

As John says, bin the compost. By using the compost on your garden you are increasing the risk of disease in the soil due to, long-lived resting spores.

 

Must be said the posts regarding overwintering spores is a little worrying. However does composting not destroy such things? I mention this because 'dumping' the old compost will probably mean that the compost finds its way into 'green waste'? I've never worried (before) about the possibility of overwintering spores. Used compost has/is always mixed with other composts for potting compost, though never I suppose for tomatoes or potatoes. Curiously I'm planning to plant Broad Beans into the reservoir pots of my outdoor Tom's when I pull out this years' Tom plants! I reasoned that the compost was better than the soil the pots are buried in!!? When I reason even more regarding possible contaminated soil i already follow a rotation as it is which is supposed to eliminate 'same crop' diseases?? I'm sure you could get very paranoid worrying too much about re-using compost? However I'm particular about some diseased plants being burnt or carefully 'dumped' in the ordinary not green waste bin. Actually, when I consider it, I've never had my green bin collected as everything goes in the compost heap!! (Green bin equals low level wormery!!) I do appreciate that if you only garden on a balcony that having a compost heap is difficult! Easy for me!

 

I think you can get paranoid about all this, plants grow in home made compost and that will contain all kinds of good and bad bacteria and spores.
Container gardening is a bit different, I must admit, but they are never going to be sterile conditions and plants mostly are able to fight off diseases, like people do, it's often when growing conditions are not ideal that the disease can get a hold.

Having said that, would I reuse potting compost, only rarely and not stuff that has had tomatoes growing badly in it.

 

You could take the trouble to experiment , planting a couple of beans in several pots and see if they show signs of malformation, suggesting aminopyralid contamination. They will unlikely give you a crop at this time of year.
How are the fungi developing? Have you indentified what they are. Previous photo resembled a field mushroom, stained by the compost. Maybe the grow bag contains spent mushroom compost?, as an ingredient. Your tomatoes maybe affected by agrochemicals used in mushroom cultivation, or the preparation of the compost, such as horse manure as in the scenario of aminopyralid.
As to re-use, in your balcony situation, I think not.

 

@infradig I did a search & came up with this webpage: Aminopyralid – the herbicide that hasn’t gone away - Organic Growers Alliance Is this what you are talking about? That might explain why my plants were so affected & my son's weren't! I gave him 2 of my tomato 'Gardener's Delight' seedlings. He put them in bigger pots later but didn't use growbags as I did. His plants have grown to over 6ft tall & are still bearing fruit even now!

 

Yes.

 

Thanks, @infradig, I'll get a packet of beans & give it a go. I'll keep you informed as well!

 

Does removing the leaves from tomato plants help them ripen?

I have many green ones which I'm hoping will ripen .both in Greenhouse and outside.

 

I don't think that there is much point in having any leaves on the plants at this late stage.
For outside ones you can cut the leaves all off then cut the plant off at ground level and hang it up in a shed with some ventilation.
They often ripen quite well that way and seem to not shrivel so much than just picking and ripening in doors.

 

As reported, it takes up to 3 years for the chemical aminopyralid to break down in soil. It does not break down until it is spread amongst soil organisms. As commercial composting is done at at least 65deg C, thereby killing soil and other organisms, the contaminant will not be broken down, but is diluted amongst the mixed ingredients, thereby becoming less potent. Bagged composts are used strait from(or within ) the bag and not mixed further with soil containing organisms. It seems quite conceivable that the symptoms seen by @Balc could be as a result of the afore described. It would need scientific analysis, affordable only to major processors, who may have a reluctance to score 'home goals'. There may be other factors in the case considered. We may never know.
Perhaps it will be the future that we need to add a preparation similar to 'Rootgrow', to prime our growing media with soil organisms, in the way that some mix in garden compost or soil to their potting mix. Obtaining a viable material devoid of weedseeds and harmful organisms is the challenge. Thoughts please.

 

Last big harvest for me, mainly from dwarf parfait, a very late potato leaved green beefsteak. Biggest tomato of the year for me I think at almost 500g although I'll have to go back and check. Got 1.6kg in total from the one plant today, plus maybe another kg in earlier harvests from it.