Please help me with my poor tomato plant!

August 1, 2008 10:28 AM

How do I nurse a very sick tomato plant back to health? I gave it far too much tomato feed by mistake, and a day later the leaves are horribly droopy/wilted (but still green), though my tomatoes are still looking like they're ripening. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how best to recover it? It's an indoor variety, grown in a foil pouch if that helps.
posted by farfaraway to Home & Garden (3 answers total)

Best answer: Sounds like overwatering to me. Is the soil soaked all the way through? Has it been wet for a few days now? If so, pull the plant out of the pouch. Take a look at the roots if you can see any without disturbing the root ball. Pull away any rotted roots (they'll be mushy) and repot it in a pot that has good drainage.

If it's not overwatering and you're worried about the excess fertilizer, repot it as above, or poke a lot of holes in the pouch, then put it in the sink and water it a few times to flush it out.
posted by hydrophonic at 10:58 AM on August 1, 2008

Response by poster: the roots look perfectly healthy, not mushy in the slightest. I have tried flushing it out a little already, but will do so a couple more times. Fingers crossed.
posted by farfaraway at 11:20 AM on August 1, 2008

What was the makeup of the tomato food? If it was really high in any of the three major fertilizer components (Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium), it's possible that you burned the roots. I'd flush the soil really well with lots of water, then let it drain very well. You'll probably need to get rid of the foil pouch to do this.
posted by mudpuppie at 12:37 PM on August 1, 2008