Help with dying tomato plant.

[TacoTaco]

Hi I am fourteen years old and new to gardening. My tomato plants (which I have been growing in my tower garden) have started to die. I have tried to water, trim, and fertilize them and nothing is working, I need help.

I am unsure of the specific variety but I planted them about 6 months ago. They have produced several tomatoes so far but now despite my efforts the vines appear to be dying off. I am located in South Florida.

Attaching pictures for reference. Thanks for the help.

 

[YumYum]

I've never seen a tomato planter like that before. Thats kinda neat.

Are you watering at the top or at the bottom some way? Can't see the whole thing. Can you take a pic of the whole tower?
How often are you watering them?
What did you use to fertilize with and how much and how often?

Have all of the tomato plants been in there for the same amount of time?
Take more pictures of that one plant that is mostly green and post those.

 

[Chuck]

I have never used a tower garden. However all tomato plants grow from roots and as the plant grows the roots also grow until at some time the roots have grown so big that they have completely grown too large for their environment. This is called being root bound. The roots have basically grown into a compacted ball. When this happens the plant cannot bring in enough water or food. If your plants were in a conventional container you would just get a larger container and all would be fine. But you cannot. Tomatos in PERFECT conditions can live for a few years. IIRC there was a tomato plant in Indonesia that lived for 7 years but it was in the ground. Most gardeners today grow tomatoes as annuals and by todays standards your plants are getting old. IMO you should just start over with new seeds or plants.

 

[YumYum]

The greener tomato plant appears to have V shaped brown patches on a couple leaves at the bottom is what caught my eye. That is what I deal with every year in my soil, which is verticillium wilt, and it eventually chokes the plants to death and they look just like the death of yours.

I think Chuck is right about just starting over fresh but if you have verticillium in the soil, then you will have to change the soil out too, or maybe boiling water will kill it not sure. You can clean the soil off the main stem near the soil line, so that you dont contaminate the cut, and take a very sharp knife and cut the stem off near the soil line. Look at the cross section of the veins. If there is a brown spot, it is verticillium wilt or fusariam wilt.

 

[Chuck]

I've never seen a tomato planter like that before. Thats kinda neat.

Are you watering at the top or at the bottom some way? Can't see the whole thing. Can you take a pic of the whole tower?
How often are you watering them?
What did you use to fertilize with and how much and how often?

Have all of the tomato plants been in there for the same amount of time?
Take more pictures of that one plant that is mostly green and post those.

Is your garden tower the soilless version or the version with soil. From the picture it appears to be the soilless version and if so being root bound is probably is what has happened. Does the pump, pump the water up to the top and then drain down? If so only some of the roots are being fed and the upright tube has become full of roots.

 

[YumYum]

My tomatoes go in the ground. Did you mean to quote me Chuck?

Soilless tower and water pump? Some kind of hydroponics machine it is?

Definitely not enough room for roots for half a dozen tomatoes stacked on top of one another.

 

[Chuck]

My tomatoes go in the ground. Did you mean to quote me Chuck?

Soilless tower and water pump? Some kind of hydroponics machine it is?

Definitely not enough room for roots for half a dozen tomatoes stacked on top of one another.

LOL. I meant to quote Taco and clicked on you instead. I do believe senility is closing in. Yes, it is a type of hydroponic set up but not totally hydroponic. This machine is called Aeroponic and from what I can gather has a water pump that pumps the water up and is set on a timer such as every 15 minutes. I think that theoretically this gives enough time for the water to percolate down and then allow oxygen to the roots. I can see it working on small rooted plants like lettuce but a tomato plants roots will fill up a 5 gallon bucket. And this machine holds 36. There is another called Garden Planter 2 and this one is stackable but is filled with compost/soil and ignorant me had to look them up as I had never heard of them. Perhaps the following link will explain. Scroll down to Learn how aeroponics works

https://www.towergarden.com/tg

 

[YumYum]

Hehe. No problem.

I'm a dirt man. No interest in that hydroponics stuff. I think the young fellow did a pretty good job with it if they grew them for 6 months whether or not it is hydroponics.

 

[Chuck]

Hehe. No problem.

I'm a dirt man. No interest in that hydroponics stuff. I think the young fellow did a pretty good job with it if they grew them for 6 months whether or not it is hydroponics.

Back in the 1970's I was involved in a large hydroponics operation in Bacliff Tx. This was when hydroponics first started. We had 1000's of plants growing in pure sand and had two 2500 gallon water tanks that fed water through that sand. We experimented with all kinds of nutrients that was added to the water some of which in some form are used today in liquid fertilizers. This operation could grow beautiful plants but what turned me off of hydroponics back then was that no matter what we did we could never grow a tomato that had the flavor of soil grown tomatoes. I don't know about the improvements in hydroponics today reguarding the flavor. All I can go by are the hydroponically grown tomatoes in the grocery store that I am forced to buy sort of taste like a soil grown tomato but really have more of a cardboard taste than a tomato. This could be because the tomatoes are picked way too early and chemically or artifically gas ripened. I don't know but I do know that one cannot beat or even rival the taste of a properly grown tomato grown in fertile soil.