Growing up ...

[Tomstrees]

Hey everyone, hope all is well.

Growing up as a kid, my Dad had a huge garden in which he would grow lots of different veggies including tomatoes. He would always win contests at the local fair every summer for the biggest best looking produce.

Thing is, I remember him always watering his garden with a garden hose from the top (and sometimes even a sprinkler) to keep the patch moist.
Crazy thing: he never had diseases from this practice
(yes there were cabbage worms - but never any "wilts", or "spots" on his maters)

Almost everywhere you go, people say to water their tomatoes from the bottom to prevent disease: but what about the rain??? These plants have been watered from above for centuries! Why not now???

As a test, I've been watering my potted tomatoes from the top just to see if there is a difference in the overall health of the plants.

Do you water from the bottom all the time???

~ Tom

[jenn_sc]

I always water from the bottom too. Funny, I was just thinking the other day that my grandfather used to water his garden with big sprinklers...late in the evening. I don't remember much disease on his plants, either.

Then again, at the first sign of a pest, he would spray the crap out of his whole garden with some horrid smelly white poison

Jennifer

[shelleybean]

Because I'm stuck here in suburbia with a pool and patio taking up most of my back yard, my garden is a lot smaller than I'd like. I place plants closer together to try to get more in and I have less air circulation. I use a wand and water at the base of each plant to try to cut down on the foliage diseases. We always get a lot of evening summer storms here and we have a lot of humidity so eventually some problem shows up. I figure I should do what I can to delay it though.

[Adenn1]

Aside from mother nature...I use soaker hoses...work out great and use less water.

[organichris]

I haven't actually needed to water at all this year. I did a couple times, but it was basically just to fertilize. We've been getting above average rain and storms, so it has been quite humid. I haven't had any diseases but I have seen some blossoms drop.

But I don't water tomato plant leaves. My father-in-law uses a sprinkler in the evening with no problems at all.

[ctx00978]

I've used sprinklers in the past, but this year am going to try out t-tape (haven't had to water with all of our rain!). I've read many of the benefits/reasons for bottom watering and they all seemed pretty reasonable, but the main reason I want to bottom water is so that I can work in my garden as it's being watered. That's a big benefit for me, but certainly doesn't relate to your question about diseases and such.

Stacie

[ddsack]

I don't use an overhead sprinker much anymore because I grow in raised beds and too much water would go to waste in between the rows. When I had a flat garden, I watered overhead and had no particular problems. Rain falls on plants all the time, so I don't worry if I get the leaves wet occasionally. I water at the base of the plant with a wand, because I have too many beds to be able to afford permanent soaker hoses for them all. When we have a drought like two years ago, seems like I spend all my free time dragging watering hoses around. This year we've had so much rain that I have one last bed with clay content that is too wet to work to put my last batch of peppers in. If the weather does not put out some serious heat soon, I'm considering putting up plastic tents over some of the beds. Not so much to keep water out, but to keep heat in!

But I do believe in Daconil.

[Tomstrees]

Daconil ... ick ...

I'm still watering my plants from above and will continue to do so until "something" bad happens (knock wood).

But yeah, I normally do water from below...

~ Tom

[Ozark]

I think Daconil is great. All it does is coat the receptor spots on tomato leaves, making it impossible for fungus spores to attach there. I don't see anything wrong with that.

I use a combination of short soaker-hose pieces with a cut-up garden hose to put water right at the base of each tomato plant where I want it. That saves a lot of water and it doesn't encourage weed and crabgrass growth in the rest of the garden.

[ddsack]

I use a combination of short soaker-hose pieces with a cut-up garden hose to put water right at the base of each tomato plant where I want it.

Now there's an idea! I do have unused older hoses nearing the end of their life that I could cut up or just punch holes in strategic places on the underside facing the soil. At least I might have enough footage for the sandier of my two gardens. Those little hose repair kits are a lifesaver. Thanks for the idea.

[huntoften]

I did the soaker hoses, and valves and hoses for several years...they worked, but I was always clamping this, repairing that, tripping over everything. This year, I bit the bullet and spent $100 on a drip irrigation system...best investment I've ever made for my garden!

It was easy to install, worked around all of my raised beds and is super efficient! I haven't had to turn it on for three weeks due to the flooding, but when things dry out this summer, I'll again see the benefits.

I was a bit intimidated to try the drip system, but once I had a kit in my hands I bought online, it was easy to figure out and simple to set up...next year will be even easier. Try drip...you'll like it!

[Ozark]

Yep, I've been doing it that way for years and it's a good use for a worn-out garden hose. Don't just punch holes in the hose, though - you don't want a hard jet of water, just a drip.

I use 1/2" soaker hose, which is real cheap. It fits inside a 5/8" garden hose, and I secure the joints with small stainless steel hose clamps from Lowe's.

Row crops, like the okra, beans, peppers, and corn in this picture are watered by continuous runs of soaker hose. I alternate soaker hose and garden hose pieces for the tomatoes so I'm not watering between plants.

After the soaker hose is down, I put a plastic bucket sleeve around each tomato and fill it with compost. Then I wrap 5' fence wire around each bucket sleeve to make a tomato cage and secure that to the t-post. Finally, I mulch the whole garden deep with grass clippings.

That's just my method, and there's lots and lots of good ways to raise tomatoes.

[huntoften]

Ozark....nice looking garden...looks like you've deer and rabbit proofed the whole thing. T-posts are a wonderful thing!

[bayliner2]

I heard that using the water hose from the top of the soil wil turn the flower brown and fell off.That what happening to me of coures I'am using 5 gallons buckets and watering just about everyday .I stop doing that hopefully it didn't the plant.

[dice]

I heard that using the water hose from the top of the soil wil turn the flower brown and fell off.

I think "top watering" in the thread you refer to meant
watering the tomato plants with a sprinkler, which gets
the flowers wet just like rain and might cause some pollen
clumping (not to mention increasing the chance of the plants
getting foliar fungal diseases, like Early Blight, Late Blight,
etc). Just watering the top of the soil with a hose when you
have the plants in buckets won't cause pollen clumping and
lack of fruit set.

If the soil is soaking wet all of the time, that could be a
problem, but I don't know that it affects fruit set in particular.
In hot weather, 5 gallon buckets dry out fast, and you may need
to water every day, even twice a day with big plants and
temperatures in the 90s F. At temperatures in the 70s-80s F,
they can usually go a few days in between waterings,
depending on exactly what kind of soil or container mix is in
them. An inexpensive moisture meter from a hardware store's
garden department is a big help in judging how often to water
when growing in containers.

Some flowers always die and don't set fruit. It is not unusual.
Humidity, temperature, a lot of things can cause it. Some
gardeners go around in the mornings and vibrate the stems
of the flower clusters with an electric toothbrush to shake out
pollen from the anthers of the flowers and increase the
chances of fruit set. Other people shake the plant, and
most simply rely on the wind to do it.

At the URL below is a page with a description of the anatomy
of tomato flowers, with pictures. The "stamens" are also
commonly called "anthers". Those are the slender yellow
things that are kind of stuck together and surround that
green thing (the pistil) in the very center of the flower.
The anthers (stamens) are where the pollen is.

http://sanangelo.tamu.edu/agronomy/tomato/flranat.html