When gardening fever hits, most people try their tomato skills first. The Garden Writers Association Foundation estimates that more than 41 million American households gardened in 2009. That’s 38% of households in the US. They also estimate that tomatoes are grown in 85% of those gardens.
Among home gardeners, also known as hobby gardeners, tomatoes are the favorites, followed closely by cucumbers and peppers. The naive, uninitiated gardener buys a tomato plant in a peat pot at the local big box store or retail nursery, digs a hole, fills the hole with potting soil, fertilizer, and water, then sits and waits for it to grow. the abundant harvest of tomatoes arrives. he decorates his kitchen.
Most novice gardeners overwater and overfertilize their plants. If a little water is good, a lot of water is great! High nitrogen fertilizer will make your plants grow fast according to the not so experienced salesperson at the big box store. So the new gardener follows the salesperson’s instructions and thoroughly waters his tomato plants every day, and applies a high-nitrogen fertilizer every week or so.
At first the results are amazing. The plants sprout quickly and produce deep green leaves. The garden enthusiast novitiate is pleased with his results and thinks, “It’s not that hard to grow vegetables.” He promises himself that next year he’ll plant more… maybe even later this summer, so he can have fall tomatoes.
Then one morning you go to visit your tomato plants and discover that some of the young, new leaves are pale yellow, starting at the leaf stem and working your way up to the veins of the new leaves. The store clerk told him that the nitrogenous fertilizer would make the leaves “green up.” So the hobby gardener thinks that if they are yellow, they must not be getting enough fertilizer. He mixes up a batch of big miracleadd more than the recommended amount of fertilizer and water the tomatoes until the fertilizer-water mixture forms rills as it trickles down the soil around the plants.
Two days later, he checks his tomatoes again. She is horrified to find that even more leaves are turning yellow and the new growth doesn’t even look like leaves. The new growth looks like small, skinny shoots that are not forming leaves at all. And when the new growth does resemble a leaf, it’s curly and knobby, reminiscent of what herbicides do to unwanted weeds. Of course, to correct the situation, she adds more water.
Do you see a pattern forming here? I hope so, because this is one of the most common experiences for the new tomato grower: over watering and over fertilizing. If this practice continues, the plants will be stunted, produce few or no tomatoes, and expire prematurely. The novice gardener will say that he has a brown thumb and will never try to garden again.
This gardener’s heartbreak and the untimely death of his precious vegetable plants could have been easily avoided by using a soil moisture meter. These devices range in price from five dollars up to a couple hundred dollars. Digital versions in the $12 to $25 range are completely adequate for the hobby gardener. There are several manufacturers and moisture meters are available online or at your local big box store…the same place he bought his tomato plants from in the first place!
The cheapest ones are completely satisfactory and will give a reading of 0.0 – 10. A low reading (0.0 – 1.5) indicates very dry soil that needs to be watered immediately. A reading near the high end of the scale (9.0 – 10) indicates very wet soil that should be allowed to dry significantly before adding more water. Most vegetable plants should be kept in the 2.5 to 5.5 range for optimal growth and production.
Get yourself a moisture meter, avoid those curled, twisted leaves on your tomatoes, and enjoy one of nature’s best homegrown fruits.