Hot weather and “early blight” yellowing lower leaves have given my tomatoes a tough time in some years. Try saving stressed tomatoes from heat or early blight using shade, vermicompost tea, and removing blighted leaves.
Remove Wilted Leaves
Pick as many wilted leaves off as you dare and either burn them or send them to the municipal compost pile. Just don’t let them get back into your garden soil.
Use Shade Cloth
Arrange a shade cover as best you can. I’ve been stapling white row cover to the wooden stakes and wiring it to T-posts. This is a good use for old used row cover left over from winter.
Vermicompost Tea
Make some worm or compost tea and give the tomatoes a jolt of minerals and organic nutrients right on the roots. My favorite is to take a moist cup full of vermicompost from my indoor bins. This stuff dissolves readily and makes black tea instantly. I find it to be more biologically active than the dried material below.
I use one cup vermicompost to 10 gallons of water to make the tea. A good recipe for worm tea is here. I don’t take the time to “brew” mine, however.
Second best is to use the drier, screened vermicompost that I get from my outdoor worm bins. This needs to soak longer for it to dissolve. I use city (chlorinated) water and let it set overnight (rainwater would be better — but it’s not raining). I pour 1/2 to 1 gallon of the tea directly on the roots of teach tomato plant.
Water Wisely
One quick watering tip: Water deeply with a soaker hose if possible, but leave one side dry. Don’t soak the plant all around because roots need to breathe.
Here’s the new growth and buds ready to bloom ten days later. Some of the lower leaves are still discolored, but I’ll remove them as the new tops get stronger.
Saving Stressed Tomatoes Pays Off
All this may seem extreme but as John Denver’s song goes, “There’s just two things that money can’t buy and that’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.”
Every day that I can extend this harvest is money in the bank and delicious summer sunshine stored for later. BLT anyone?
Stan Slaughter is a presenter providing waste reduction and composting programs in schools and for adults in cities, counties and states. He has visited more than 1,000 schools and 100,000 students in Kansas. He is also active in the U.S. Composting Council, presenting workshops entitled Best Practices in Compost Education at the annual conference. He was the first winner of the Missouri Environmental Educator of the Year award in 1995. Read all of Stan’s MOTHER EARTH NEWS posts here.
