The Nitrogen Warnings -- too much or not enough

One of the things I'd read about in my early days of tomato self-education via wandering around the halls of the Internet was the dreaded "too much nitrogen" syndrome.  It seemed more often than not, people would struggle with too much nitrogen in the potting mix, which is a common cause for lack of fruit production. In fact, too much nitrogen will cause blossom drop.

When I'd started out, the only fertilizer I had on hand was some by Miracle-Gro for orchid plants. I ended up not using it for my orchids, because it contains nitrogen from ammonia. That's apparently a "cheap" way to get nitrogen to a plant, but for orchids it's a touchy kind of thing. It can end up making a plant's condition worse.  So I had this fertilizer and started applying it to my tomato plants early on. But then blossom drop happened not long after and I attributed it to too much nitrogen.  What I failed to realize is that blossom drop can happen dude to too little nitrogen. A lack of nitrogen will cause stunted tomato growth as well. Not having grown tomato plants before, I didn't realize that the growth I'd been experiencing was below average.

By the end of the first week of August, the Black Krim has reached the top of the 6' bamboo supports. That's pretty decent growing for height. But looking over the foliage, a good bit of it curled and some of it rolled, and I have to conclude that I'm looking at a nitrogen deficient plant.  I'm going to try increasing nitrogen infused with the watering and see if that helps any. It might encourage a few more flowers to set and perhaps I'll get at least a few more tomatoes before the season is over. The good thing is that on the upper 1/4 of the plant there are two pea sized tomatoes that are growing, which means I'll have a minimum of 6 tomatoes from this plant by the end of the season. That's not too bad considering what went wrong in the beginning.

Black Krim -- 6' tall

There are a number of flowers that have set but then stopped growing. Inside the dried up anther cones are proto-tomatoes that will either end up aborted or try to resume growing into fruits. I pulled one of the anther cones out of curiosity to see what was doing inside. And then about 5 days later, the whole thing shriveled up... didn't even fall off, it's on so tight. Looks like something straight out of a Tim Burton animated movie.

The Black Krim seedling is doing just fine. It outgrew its first support post. I put in a 6' plastic coated steel rod, which will provide ample support for the rest of the growing season, later supplemented with bamboo supports around the perimeter. There are 6 flowers going in various stages. I buzzed the ones in full bloom with an electric toothbrush to help encourage pollination. Hopefully it'll have done the trick. There's a fine coating of pollen on the toothbrush tip, so it definitely got dislodged.  ;-)

Black Krim seedling -- taking off in high spirits

There's no doubt that this seedling is growing much more aggressively than the parent did when it started out. It's satisfying to know that I've done at least a few things right. Hopefully I can keep it going.  :-)