help fix over-nitrogen'ed buckets

paradajky · June 12, 2022

Hi:

90% sure half my tomato plants got too much nitrogen.

What should I do?
1. Nothing, let it go and hope they outgrow the over-nitrogen
2. Toss the tomatoes and try replacing with something from nursery
3. Dig out the espoma tomato tone fertilizer ring, and "flush" the container mix a couple times
4. Dig out the tomato, replace the container mix, put tomato back in
5. DIg out the tomato, bare root it, and replace the container mix with fresh mix, put tomato back in, leaving out the tomato tone
6. Something else???

Here's the background:

Third year trying to grow. Late start. Transplanted very healthy seedlings last week from 4" pots to 5 gallon buckets last week.
Rain gutter self-watering setup.

Container mix: 3 parts sunshine #4 mix**, 2 parts bark fines, 1 part perlite, 1/2 part composted steer manure, and 1.5 cups espoma garden lime. After seedling planted into this, top inch mix removed, a ring of 2-3 cups espoma tomato tone poured around edge, and dirt replaced. All buckets top-down watered once, and only half tomatoes were top-down watered a second time mid-week as they looked a little lacking for water and the mix didn't seem to be wicking effectively for some reason yet.

** alternative to promix currently available locally

Everything looked great only 4 days in and then I noticed new growth of the second-top-down watered tomatoes coming out curly, exactly like too much nitrogen. They even have flowers starting to come out only a week in and they are twisting up too, uggghhh! I honestly thought the organic tomato tone would be a lot slower acting, and the nitrogen is fairly low here to begin with.

I can provide pictures later if necessary.

Last year I grew some tomatoes in double-bucket system, which is similar to this rain gutter setup. Soil mix was nearly exactly the same, except there was no composted manure and only 1-2 cups of fertilizer. Had no issues, other than the tomatoes were very slow to start growing and tasted rather bland.

Thanks for your time to help me fix this.

June 12, 2022	#1
paradajky Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2021 Location: Coastal Southern CA Posts: 164	help fix over-nitrogen'ed buckets Hi: 90% sure half my tomato plants got too much nitrogen. What should I do? 1. Nothing, let it go and hope they outgrow the over-nitrogen 2. Toss the tomatoes and try replacing with something from nursery 3. Dig out the espoma tomato tone fertilizer ring, and "flush" the container mix a couple times 4. Dig out the tomato, replace the container mix, put tomato back in 5. DIg out the tomato, bare root it, and replace the container mix with fresh mix, put tomato back in, leaving out the tomato tone 6. Something else??? Here's the background: Third year trying to grow. Late start. Transplanted very healthy seedlings last week from 4" pots to 5 gallon buckets last week. Rain gutter self-watering setup. Container mix: 3 parts sunshine #4 mix, 2 parts bark fines, 1 part perlite, 1/2 part composted steer manure, and 1.5 cups espoma garden lime. After seedling planted into this, top inch mix removed, a ring of 2-3 cups espoma tomato tone poured around edge, and dirt replaced. All buckets top-down watered once, and only half tomatoes were top-down watered a second time mid-week as they looked a little lacking for water and the mix didn't seem to be wicking effectively for some reason yet. alternative to promix currently available locally Everything looked great only 4 days in and then I noticed new growth of the second-top-down watered tomatoes coming out curly, exactly like too much nitrogen. They even have flowers starting to come out only a week in and they are twisting up too, uggghhh! I honestly thought the organic tomato tone would be a lot slower acting, and the nitrogen is fairly low here to begin with. I can provide pictures later if necessary. Last year I grew some tomatoes in double-bucket system, which is similar to this rain gutter setup. Soil mix was nearly exactly the same, except there was no composted manure and only 1-2 cups of fertilizer. Had no issues, other than the tomatoes were very slow to start growing and tasted rather bland. Thanks for your time to help me fix this.