Help with tomato plant!

Gillby1

Hi all,

I'm growing two tomato plants in a grow bag, and they're doing really well - they are huge, and i have 8 or 9 toms that are getting quite big. However, i've noticed that a few of them have grey patches on the bottom, as if they are starting to rot. Can anyone help! I'm not overwatering them, if that makes a difference?

Also, at what stage should i pinch out the top growing stem to stop them getting any taller?

Thanks!

bluenose1

I am afraid it sounds like grey mould which is a fungal disease. It normally happens when the tomatoes are tiny. You will find that as the tomatoes ripen they rot.
Not sure if you should just remove infected tomatoes, but have a feeling whole plant may be infected.

Hopefully someone more knowlegable than me will tell you.
Hope all your tomato plants are not infected.
Regards
Anne

troll35

If the grey bit is where the flower has dropped off it could be blossom end rot which is caused by fluctuations in watering. I am currently giving my toms water in a morning and an evening so that they don't dry out. As long as there are drainage holes in the growbags you are unlikely to overwater them.

The stem of one of my tomatoes snapped (I didn't use a long enough cane). I stuck the top half in a large vase of water and it is now rooting but some of the topmost tomatoes have been removed due to blossom end rot.

tanith

You should stop the plants when there are 5 or 6 trusses of tomatoes formed... and also you should pinch out any shoots that start to grow where the leaf joins with the main stem... I found a shoot I had missed today and it was nearly a foot high.....

squeaky

There's a link to how to grow (and top) tomatoes, plus a second link on diseases (both with photos) in the thread linked below:-

Tomato questions