Hello again,

I transplanted homegrown tomato seedlings into my raised bed on 3/10/24. They were approximately 2.5" - 3" inches tall then and very green. Now, they're 6.5" - 9" tall with one looking a bit pale and the others with yellowing on the newer sprouting leaves.

I inoculated the roots with mycorrhizae at the time of transplanting and have since fertilized every 2 weeks with Alaskan fish emulsion 5-11-11. I'm in Southern California, in the city of Murrieta. We've recently had a lot of rain so I'm not sure if too much water is the issue. I hope the pics will show you what I see.

Thanks for any accompanying advice.

Are you sure the NPK isn't 5:1:1? I think fish emulsion every two weeks just isn't enough for tomatoes.

... , especially with heavy rain in a raised bed. I suspect nutrients are leaching out. Yes, that product is 5-1-1.

Your plants still look pretty healthy, all things considered. I agree with Lucy and Zoe, heavy rain and inadequate fertilizer should be considered. And your plants are also experiencing a lot of stress because I believe it is still going down into the 40s every night in your area. Tomatoes like warm temps 50* and higher. Are you covering them at night to keep them warm? I'm still wearing my wool socks to bed.

Tomato leaves usually develop purple veins and edges when they're too cold.

You're right, it is 5-1-1, however, I also combine it with the Alaskan fish fertilizer 0-10-10.

I recently removed the green house cover due to the nice sunny weather. I guess I'll cover them back up. They are pretty healthy. Just got a bit concerned that this was happening too early in their growth. I took some soil to do a nutrient test. I'll post the results if anyone's interested.

Thank you all.

The leaf curl is a sign of environmental stress, tomatoes need more than fish emulsion, yes. N-P-K doesn't need to be very high, but should read more like a N3-P4-K6. N is your top growth, too much N(itrogen) makes all plant and no fruits. P(hosphorus) is to encourage blooms -K(Potassium) is for overall plant health and disease resistance.
Too much fertilizer, or too high NPK can slowly cause the stems to turn woody and quit taking up any nutrients at all.
Yellow is usually a water issue - too much or too little turns leaves yellow, especially if the weather is cool...soils below 50* cause a plant to stop taking up water as fast.
I had to go refresh my memories really quick. You DO NOT get a 5-11-11 by mixing those 2 fertilizers together, I believe it is done by weights and depending on the weight you could get more like 3-6-6 instead of a 5-11-11 - NO I didn't do the math outright but you needed an example and that is a rough estimate. THERE IS a formula you can use to come up with what you are actually getting when you mix fertilizers.

Definitely a bit too cool for tomatoes right now. They won't die or get real stunted, but they'll look sad for awhile.

Good news. I covered them with a raised bed greenhouse cover and it looks as this has helped. Thank you all.

Kittriana,

I really thought I was providing 5 - 11 - 11 when combining Alaska fish fertilizer 5-1-1 and Alaska Morbloom 0-10-10. Where can I find the equation? And are these two products good/safe for my tomato plants? The instructions are 1tbsp mixed with 1 gallon of water

the products are fine, I don't have the equation, I have lost a lot of things thru the years, chuckl, try searching the internet, be careful of decimal points... I am finding the shredded wood products may be yellowing my plants some - an adjustment of nutrients may be in order. I believe fish is a good fertilizer, but, knowing it was used in the 3 sisters types of Fall gardens in poor dead soils, I honestly think it was simply to bring living organisms to the soil, not as an actual fertilizer. Remember part of that NPK is a salt and prone to remaining in the soil...

If you're mixing the same amount of each, you add the % and divide by 2.

[5-1-1 + 0-10-10]/ 2 = 2.5 - 5.5 - 5.5

If you're mixing different amounts of each it gets more complicated.

This week is warming up, so they should start looking better soon.

CalPolygardener:

What would be the reasoning for dividing by 2?

I recently fertilized all 4 plants with Miracle-Gro tomato fertilizer: 18-18-21. Is that too much?

Attached are two that are showing signs of twisted branches and curling leaves.

Recently there was another question about tomato symptoms very similar to yours. Here was one answer

https://garden.org/thread/view...

You might benefit from reading the whole thread, in which several possibilities are put forth.

Re fertilizer: if your tomatoes are confined to containers and not in ground soil, they need to be supplemented with a full range of micro- and macronutrients, not just NPK, required for plant health. Find a fertilizer that provides magnesium, calcium, sulfur, boron, zinc, manganese and molybdenum as well. Resist the hype of "bloom booster" products with super-high phosphorus; those have been discredited as unnecessary and counterproductive. However, there is such wildly conflicting information specific to fertilizing tomatoes in containers that I can't begin to recommend any particular product except to suggest one that is reasonably balanced and contains a full spectrum of nutrients.

How you calculate the strength when you mix fertilizers depends on how you mix them. Do you pour them into another container and then use the recommended 1 tbsp per gallon of that mixture? Or do you add 1 tbsp of EACH fertilizer to 1 gallon, on other words, 2 tablespoons total? It matters.

Because you added 2 fertilizers you divide by 2. If you add more together you divide by how many there are.

NMoasis said:
How you calculate the strength when you mix fertilizers depends on how you mix them. Do you pour them into another container and then use the recommended 1 tbsp per gallon of that mixture? Or do you add 1 tbsp of EACH fertilizer to 1 gallon, on other words, 2 tablespoons total? It matters.

I use the recommended dosages. The Alaskan fish emulsion 5-1-1, instructs to use 2 tbsp per gallon of water for 25 sq ft of soil. For the Alaskan Morbloom, it's 1 tbsp for every 25 square ft. My raised bed is approximately 21 sq ft.

I add 2 tbsp of the fish emulsion and 1 tbsp of Morbloom to one gallon of water. Am I doing this correctly? Seems pretty simple on the instructions. But then again, I've still a lot to learn. Thanks.

I follow your reasoning. I think the averaging calculation (divide by 2) only applies if you were to mix each product according to instructions in two separate gallons and then combine them. However, my ability to evaluate fertilizer strength just got thoroughly trounced in another thread, so I'm reluctant to make any pronouncements. It was about total ppm calculations, though, not exactly the issue here, but related. Here's a calculator for ppm, if you're interested.
https://firstrays.com/fertiliz...

Nonetheless, I am certain that your potted tomatoes need more nutrients than those two products provide. 😊

Here's how my tomato plants are doing so far. Three are growing really well were as the one in the middle is still pale and small. They were all started from seed on the same day and then transferred to the raised bed on the same day.

On the right: Rio Grande, middle: T Floradade, left: Ace 55. In the 10 gallon grow bag: Mortgage Lifter. All are supposed to be determinate and suited for hot climates. As you can see, some leaves are curling inward with some branches twisting.

I fertilized them last Monday with a foliar spray that included the nutrients mentioned earlier. Three are a little over 2' tall with the smaller one, over a foot tall. They have flowers and seem to be growing well. Just concerned about the branches twisting. Temperatures here Murrieta, CA, have been in the mid to upper 70s, nights: mid 60s.

What does your soil consist of?

RpR said: What does your soil consist of?

Sorry for the late response. Not sure what the soil consisted of when the raised beds were constructed. The garden was built my my company for its employees.

In January, in preparation for the spring growing season, I added 2 cubic feet of composted steer manure along with 1 cubic feet of composted chicken manure. I didn't plant anything until March.

Yesterday I tested my soil using a kit purchased from Lowes, Mosser-Lee, Soil Master. The results were: pH (7); N (low-medium); P (medium); K (high). I used distilled water as recommended.

Today I'm going to use a different test kit to see if I get the same or close to the same results.









Akasha Soil Test Kit results:
pH 7 - 7.5; N (high); P (medium); K (high). So not too far off.