EasyBloom Forum

I live in Central FL. Just planted my tomatoes this weekend. (I know it's a little late) A couple became wilty right away. My EZ Bloom said they would do well where they are. I have watered them daily since planting. What else should I do to get them strong again?

Hi Jacquelyn, Thanks so much for your inquiry here about your wilty tomatoes! Just wanted to give you my first guess about what is wrong. I believe it is a problem of over watering. Tomatoes love to push their roots out to follow the water as the soil dries out. I planted mine 10 days ago and have just watered them that first time. Later in the season a more consistent and frequent watering may be necessary to keep the fruit from cracking, but in these early stages it is more important NOT to water so the plant develops a larger and stronger root system. Continually watering the starts is just keeping the soil around the roots too wet and may even be drowning the plants a bit (thus the wiltyness- ok that can't be a word!). This constant wet soil will not allow for proper early development of the roots and will result in weaker plants with smaller root systems when they are mature. So this is a perfect opportunity to use your sensor in 'Monitor' mode and assign it to your type of tomato (or any tomato should work fine) and resist watering until the light starts flashing yellow instead of green. You need to monitor for at least 24 hours...so if the light starts flashing yellow immediately then keep your sensor in for the full 24 hours. If it stays green for a week or two before turning yellow then you can take it out immediately and plug it into your computer. Once your in plant doctor go ahead and click on the second tab which is 'Plant View'.. if the watering chart is all blue then your soil is still too wet...if the blue part of the graph has dropped into the dry area then you need to go ahead and water away! This could be hard to do at first, but trust me your tomatoes will be much more happy when they go through this early wet and drying cycle. Hope this is helpful Jacquelyn! I look forward to hearing about your tomatoes bouncing back for you! Best!~ Ian

Ok - I've had the monitor mode in for a few days now and the yellow light is now blinking but my tomatoes still look sad. Should I go ahead and water just a little bit? Take the monitor out and see my readings? I'm just so confused with growing in FL. Had no problem with my garden in NC.

Check your fertilizer levels. I grow tomatoes every year in Louisiana with no issue but this year I have a few "wilty" ones. When I check the fertilizer level, I had over fertilized in that area (easybloom confirmed it).

easybloom said I was doing evrything right re:light, temp, and water. Maybe it is the fertilizer. How do I check that? And then if it is too high, how do I correct? Thank you so much for your help with all this. Fortunately if I can resucitate these 2 that I have problems with I have another 6 that look fine thus far.

Hello Jacquelyn~ So I looked up your account information and unfortunately your sensor is the last generation which does not take fertilizer readings. So Tim could certainly be correct that your plants could be over fertilized! You can try to flush the soil with fresh water for about 10 minutes to rinse out excessive fertilizer salts to see if your plants respond to that. Also I wanted to include our link to our sensor being sold on Amazon in case you wanted to upgrade to the newest version... with that said with the new sensor the fertilizer subscription does cost $3 a month ...but if you buy the new sensor just let us know...and I will give you a free subscription for three months so you can test it out! Here is that link for you ~http://amzn.to/fxmcKx . Best!~ Ian

Hello, I realize this is late, depending where you are located in central florida we have some areas with absolutely great soil for tomatoes, and some places with dreadful soil for tomatoes, which is easily remedied. Fertilizer wise you can goto your local home depot and there is a kit to check the fertilizer balance/amounts for about 3 - 4$ sadly one time use, but that's something you'd probably only use once maybe twice a season. Typically from what I've found most people in our area that are reasonably successful start out with a slightly nitrogen strong or a balanced fertilzer until their tomato plants get established since our summers are dreadfully hot, then move to either a balanced or slightly pottasium strong blend of fertilizer. (Basically when you first get them start with something where the three numbers are close to the same to the first number being slightly higher, then move to something where the middle number is a little higher) But I highly advise getting that fertilizer kit to see where you're at.