Plant Problem #3: Tomatoes

On Saturday, July 6th my husband and I attended a "Common Tomato Problems" class at Tagawa Gardens.

It covered a lot of the usual that I've heard about, blossom end rot, cracking, etc. Also covered some pretty gross looking bugs, which luckily we have not seen.

But we also learned about Physiological Leaf Roll, which is pretty much how it sounds. The leaves roll inwards. It's brought on by a variety of environmental stresses (i.e., temperature, moisture levels, nitrogen levels, etc...). So we come home and look at our plants, sure enough, looks like we got a bit of this going on.

Good news is, this shouldn't affect our yields at all. I gave them a little TLC today - pruned, side-dressed, and put mulch around the base of the plants to retain moisture.

Up until this point, I'd been hesitant to apply mulch. One, I just don't like it and two, since our soil is soooo clay ridden, I feel it should be retaining moisture a little too well. But as the temperature is rising, I decided to bite the bullet and listen to the experts. So we are all mulched up. Hopefully this reduces our plants stress-level. Lol, my plants are stressed. What a rough life they have.

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