Tomato: Leaf malady

I'm not sure whether to water the tomato or if I'm watering it too much. The leaves are all droopy and it is looking listless. The outside temperature is 25°C and humidity is through the roof. Tomatoes like warm, dry temperatures, so this humidity may be pretty uncomfortable for it.

But the problem I'm most worried about is a white powder on the leaves. It looks like a fungus, but I can't find anything relevant online about it.

If anyone has any idea what the problem is and what the solution should be, please leave a comment.

Tomato: Replacing the stake

The tomato plant has gone through extensive growth in the last few weeks. The original stake it was tied to has become just a bit too short for it.

To remedy this, I went to the home center and bought a brand new stake. It's taller than I am, so I don't expect any problems with size for the time being.

By the way, this is what I look like at 6:30 in the morning.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the tomato has branched, so replacing the stake is a two-pronged approach (I'm killing me with these puns). Here is the tomato before the stake replacement.

Here, you can see how the tomato branches to the left. There is a second stake to hold up the branch on the left. Actually, the branch on the left is the main branch! The branch that grows straight upwards grew out of a bud (わき芽). As I mentioned before, this is bad for the fruits because it draws nutrients away from the fruits and towards leaf growth.

At this point, though, removing the branch would cause a lot more trouble for the plant because it has given almost half of its energy growing that side. It is very large and has a couple sets of flowers. However, it is a subordinate branch, so I don't want to treat it like the primary branch.

I made two changes to the staking. The first is the primary stake. As you can see in the picture, it is much thicker and taller. This should help with strong winds as well as for future upwards growth.

The other change was to move the primary branch to the main stake. This is a bit difficult because the original staking had trained the primary branch to grow sideways. However, a bit of creative tying coaxed it into place. I also posted the smaller stake diagonally to support the branch.

Some leaves were removed in the process and mulched. The overall look is a bit cleaner and the tomatoes are now visible along the main branch. I'll be watching the side branch to make sure it has enough support since it is no longer held straight up and is only supported by one small stake.

Tomato: Summer has arrived

It's hard to believe, but the little tomato seed I planted back in March has grown into a great big tomato plant and it is starting to bear fruit.

I left Tokyo for a 3 week trip to Seattle and when I left the plant was barely 15cm tall. I came back on Monday and found the plant had grown to over a meter. In fact, if it weren't for branching, the plant would no doubt be even taller.

One of the care tips for growing tomatoes is to remove buds that appear in between the main stem and the leaf branches. Leaving them in will result in the stem splitting into two branches. This can result in a bigger, bushier plant, but the downside is that each branch must then compete for nutrients and that can result in a lower yield.

Unfortunately while I was out in Seattle, one bud turned into a branch and is now flowering. Cutting it at this stage would probably harm the plant, so I will leave it on and hope for the best. If you catch the buds when they are small, you can remove them fairly easily with just a pinch. When they are larger, though, they require scissors or shears to remove. It also exposes a large raw area which can become infected, so it's better to nip it in the bud (get it? aren't I clever?) than to wait until you've got two branches.

Of course, all this gardening and care talk is just filler for the real reason for this post (as well as the reason we are growing them): Tomatoes!

There are at least two bunches of tomatoes growing now. The tomatoes shown here are about the size of normal cherry tomatoes. These are medium-sized tomatoes, so they should grow quite a bit bigger and redder.

Potato: A quick peek

In the spring time, Japan experiences very strong wind storms as the weather warms up. This year, the wind whipped through the veranda and caused a lot of damage. Our laundry rack was blown over and the leaves were torn off of some of the plants. One potato plant took a huge amount of damage, losing all of its leaves. That plant has died.

But the other potato seems to be going strong. The leaves are broken in places, but the stem is still strong and the remaining leaves haven't wilted yet.

I was curious about the status of the potatoes under the soil. It's all kind of mysterious. How deep are the potatoes? What do they look like? So I scraped away at the soil to find the hidden treasure.

There are three potatoes visible in this picture. The largest and most visible one is about the size of a golf ball. The smallest one is about the size of a marble. There is about one month more to go before harvest time, but these potatoes are coming along very well.

In order to prevent solanine contamination, I quickly covered the potatoes back up and tamped the soil back down.

A brief update about the tomatoes. There has been a lot of growth in the past week. The re-potted tomato has grown significantly, especially compared with the seedlings still in the starter tray. More space for root growth as well as more fertilizer has probably led to this. I've tied the stem to the post, but at the speed it is growing, I'll have to make another tie soon.

I took the remaining seedlings in the starter pots, save two, and added them to the compost bin. The two that are saved may go to a loving family who doesn't mind that the growing season is already well underway.

Tomato: Transplanting day

So what's it been? A couple weeks since I last wrote in earnest here?..

To be honest, a lot of gardening is just sitting around waiting for stuff to happen. There hasn't really been much of note to talk about, so I won't bother you with the minutiae of watering and moving planters around.

Today was actually a big day here. The tomatoes have reached transplanting age, and I spent a few minutes this morning transplanting the healthiest tomato into a large planter. There are actually a few healthy tomatoes, but I honestly don't have room for all of them. There is a nice family that lives down the block who always have such great tomato plants, I may drop one off on their doorstep in the middle of the night.

The transplant actually began a week ago. Before the actual plant is entered into the pot, I prepared the soil. First, I added a bunch of the "compost" from my makeshift compost pile. On top of that, I added some pelletized manure and some strawberry plant fertilizer (it is a balanced 7-7-7 blend). After mixing the soil thoroughly, I watered it and let it stand for a week. Today, the soil was loamy and crumbly, in other words just right.

I picked the tomato with the broadest, healthiest leaves and cut its little plastic pot away from the others. With the pot still intact, I dug a hole in the planter soil and placed the plastic pot directly in. Once the pot was in place, I packed extra soil around it and watered thoroughly.

The reason behind this step is that the hole for the transplant is the exact same size as the soil block going in. Once the soil was watered, I took the plastic pot out and it left a perfectly-sized hole. I tapped the tomato seedling out of the pot and slid it right into the hole.

After the tomato went in, I packed a little more soil around it and tamped it down.

I have also added a guide stick which I will tie the tomato plant to. I'm all out of twine at the moment. Maybe I'll have some time to pick some up tomorrow.

Here's what it looks like in the new planter.


If you have need of a tomato seedling, I've got a handful left! Please let me know.

Tomato: Seedlings coming along

The weather has again taken a turn for the worse and so I'm worried about the young tomato seedlings. The past couple days have been really warm and sunny, and the seedlings perked up a lot. However, if the frost comes tomorrow morning, these little guys may be wiped out in one fell swoop.

I took the opportunity last weekend to thin some of the plants. Since each pot received 3 seeds, some pots needed thinning.

Unfortunately, the fluctuating weather has been tough on the seedlings, and a few pots are unpopulated. It's okay, though, I really didn't need 16 tomato plants growing all at once.

I had originally expected that the plants would be much bigger by now, actually. The seedlings at the home center are all at least 10cm tall, but mine are barely 2cm. But it is still early in the planting season and so these seedlings still have 3 more weeks before they need transplanting. If the weather holds up, they should be 10-20cm in a couple more weeks.

Tomatoes: Sprouts

It's spring time here in Tokyo, but you wouldn't know it if you stepped outside. We've had a week-long cold snap here which has really put a damper on cherry blossom viewing. Usually the cherry trees are in full bloom, but due to the cold many are buds haven't opened yet.

Today is a bit warmer, but it still doesn't quite feel like spring has sprung.

The tomatoes I planted in the first week of March are sprouting. The cold hasn't affected them as much as I had expected, and all 16 pots have tiny little sprouts poking up through the soil.

As I mentioned before, each pot is planted with 3 seeds in the expectation that the majority of seeds will likely fail to germinate. That 16 sprouts have appeared is pretty astonishing to me, since I wasn't expecting so many to actually make it.

These plants will continue to grow in the pot until they are about 20cm or so. My notes show that the plants should be ready for transplant in late May.

Tomatoes: Planting seeds

Everyone thinks of tomatoes as a summer fruit, and as far as the actual fruiting goes, that is correct. However, tomatoes begin their life in early March.

The planting window for tomato seeds in Tokyo is the last week of February through the first couple weeks of March. We've been having variable weather, ranging from warm and sunny to snow. I put off planting until this past weekend to avoid the chance of frost killing the seedlings.

I bought a pack of small starting trays at the gardening supply shop and started 16 pots. Each pot has 3 seeds to maximize the possibility of sprouting. If more than one seed per pot sprouts, I'll have to perform some thinning.

To prepare the seeds, I simply ate a greenhouse tomato in January. I gathered up all the seeds that spilled out and placed them on a tissue. I folded the tissue over and rolled it up into a tube and sealed it with some scotch tape. The tissue soaks up the water from around the seeds and keeps them dry.

Before planting, I simply unrolled the tissue and cut the paper so that each seed was separate on its own piece of tissue. The seeds stick to the tissue, so I don't make any attempt to separate the seeds from the tissue. Rather, I just cut the paper into small slivers. These slivers go directly into the soil. For the past few years I've done this with different types of seeds to great success, so it might be worth a try if you are growing anything from seeds that you're collecting yourself.

Here is a picture of the starting tray with the seeds planted:

According to my notes, the seedlings will take until May to grow large enough to be transplanted. Watering will follow a weekly schedule. Keep the soil moist but not overly wet, allow for full drainage.

Next tomato update will probably be when the sprouts appear above the soil.