The Dirt Gardener's Column for May 29

Q. My tomatoes are doing poorly. Some of the plants are yellow with black spots, while others have curled and they’re all growing very slowly. What type of fertilizer should I use to get them healthy?

A. This has not been a great year for growing tomatoes because of the weather conditions. In April, we had below normal temperatures every week with rain. Also, it was cool with rain on Mother’s Day. To successfully grow tomatoes, we need warm days and mild nights; otherwise, the plants suffer from weather stress. The cool day’s causes the curly leaves while the yellowing and black spots is either Alternaria or Septoria leaf spot. These problems are a direct result of the cool temperatures and moist conditions. You could spray them with a Copper fungicide for a short-term answer; however, there is a much bigger issue. Tomato plants don't quickly recover when conditions improve or from additional nutrients. Compared to a vigorous plant, they continue to stagnate and exhibit a slow growth habit with poor production. To say it another way, there is no catch up gene in the DNA of a tomato plant. The long-term solution is to replace the plants or severely lower your expectations. If these were my plants, I’d replace them ASAP. You avoid this in the future by planting late or very late in the spring depending on the conditions. I believe that any tomatoes planted before April 15 is a gamble because of the uncertainty of the growing conditions. Personally, I prefer to plant in early May. The variety selection is still very good but it does decline the closer we get to Memorial Day. Also, I’m not concerned about tall or leggy plants. Actually, I prefer my plants this way as I a like to plant them very deep, up to the second set of leaves from the top. In typical years late planted tomatoes produce just soon if not sooner than those planted earlier.

Q. I have a mature, healthy Bing Cherry tree. During the blooming season, I see lots of bees but for the last three years there have been no cherries. What has happened?

A. There is no great mystery here, as your pollinating cherry tree has just disappeared. Each variety of cherry requires a specific variety for pollination to set fruit. Black Tartartian or Van are the pollinators for the Bing Cherry. Two Bing Cherry trees will not work. Originally, this point was over looked but it didn’t matter until now as the appropriate cherry tree, was nearby and pollinated your tree via the bees. This tree has either died or been removed; hence you're ending up with no cherries. To solve this problem, you could graft a pollinator on to the existing tree. I’m not very successful at grafting so my solution would be to plant a second tree close by. Today, there are self-fertile Bing cherry varieties but this is a mature tree so I don’t think it applies

by Buzz Bertolero, CCNP