Help! I really suck at gardening.

I have a lot of questions and problems but lets start with my main ones.  I am getting good plant growth but they don't fruit.

I live in southeast Georgia so we're talking HOT weather. My garden setup is one raised bed with an automated watering system using a form of drip irrigation. The bed is made up of Pete moss, topsoil, compost and fertilizer. There is a greenhouse with an aquaponic system, a dutch bucket hydroponic system and a deep raft hydroponic system.

I seem to have the best results with the dutch bucket system. I know pollination can be a problem inside the greenhouse so I have lightly manually shaken the tomato plants to aid pollination.

I cannot get a tomato plant to survive in the raised bed. They do good for about a week then wilt and die.

Any suggestions?

Sounds like you set up a lot of irrigation infrastucture. I don't know how that works, or what your climate is like...

I have a lot of organic matter buried under my raised beds, mostly wood. I only water my plants if I transplant them in to get them through transplant shock. Otherwise I let the rain do the work for me. You may not get as much rain as I do, so that might not be an option. I will water if we have an extended dry period and the plants look like they're wilting even after the hot day's sun has passed. However that hasn't happened in the past 18 months for me.

What I want to say is that water is not always the problem, and sometimes more water does not help.

I'm also a beginner gardener, just starting my third year or so now, so I'm only sharing what I've learned here.

My understanding is that plants need different nutrients for growing leaves, fruit, and roots. Also plants will set fruit or not set fruit when certain conditions are met or when put under a particular stress. Perhaps your plants have not met the appropriate trigger condition for them to set fruit, be it temperature change from day to night, or sunlight exposure, or something else. Or perhaps (I think less likely) your soil has too much or not enough of a particular nutrient. I have heard too much nitrogen can cause some plants to sprawl endlessly without setting fruit or making tubers.

Sorry I'm not well learned enough to give more specific answers.

Regarding your tomatoes:
Many nightshade plants may struggle with the heat and not set fruit.
Here do small cherry Tomatoes better than bigger or Beef tomatoes.
I also agree with L. Johnson.
Too much leaves and no fruit set can also be a problem created by over fertilization, wrong fertilization and over watering.

As a beginner I would not focus too much on results and good harvests.
I guess you have been looking for the most favorite and expensive Tomatoes, but there is a reason why they are expensive.
They mostly are very picky and need an experienced hand or a complete different climate and perfect timing when what fertilizer is used.

The seed companies print the nicest pictures and the biggest harvests on their packs and promise a one shoe fits all.

The first step is get hold on as many seeds you can get and try try try.
Find out which ones are doing well.
Most plants you seed might not do well in your garden and this fact is not really motivating.

To reach fast success is try as many as possible in every season and find our which are the ones that suit your climate and soil.

As my ancestors started to cultivate the East Frisian Moorlands they had a saying:

Dem ersten der Tod
Dem zweiten die Not
Dem dritten das Brot

death to the first,
misery to the second,
bread to the third

That suits gardening for beginners as well.

Just take whatever you can get hold on.
Also don't forget the seeds from your store bought fresh veggies and neighbors who might have some self-made Heirlooms.
They might be the ones producing gold nuggets in your garden.  
 
All greens that didn't meet your expectations are still a success when you turn them into proper bio compost for the next year.

See said, "Too much leaves and no fruit set can also be a problem created by over fertilization, wrong fertilization and over watering.

This!  Fertilizing with the wrong proportions can cause too many leaves and not fruit.

I am not big on commercial fertilizers.

I believe in building soil health by making and using compost, and using compost teas.

Wood chips are an easy way to start working on soil health.

These threads might be good to get you started:

https://permies.com/t/77536/wonderful-world-water-soil-plants

https://permies.com/t/63914/Soil

I would also like to recommend Dr. Bryant Redhawk's Soil Series:

https://permies.com/wiki/redhawk-soil

Heat may be part of the problem since this is a problem in both soil and hydroponics/aquaponics. I use a media in the dutch bucket system that is specific for tomatoes. I only get one or two tomatoes per plant. This same system does produce well when I plant crook neck squash.  The aquaponic system does about the same as the hydroponic unit.

I have not been looking  for the expensive tomatoes. I get heirloom seeds from The Southern Seed Exchange and some plants from some big box stores locally.  Mostly common varieties from cherry tomatoes to beefstake!

Luckily our chickens eat everything green that comes out of the gardens.

My neighbor gets better yields than me but his plants don't keep producing. They die shortly after he picks the first time. He claims that there is a fungus in the soil that limits the life of tomato plants in our area.

Getting GOOD vegetative growth off the bat is NOT sucking at gardening :)    You got plants to germinate and thrive to strong vegetative states with healthy true leaves!   Those are the first two challenging hurdles of growing food accomplished.   It's all a learning and experimenting process,  always the "next thing" to tweak, test, and improve.   So I say WELL DONE.   Good advice here for getting the next benchmark accomplished.

"I cannot get a tomato plant to survive in the raised bed. They do good for about a week then wilt and die."

Have you hardened off the tomatoes properly before planting?

It's generally recommended to put the transplants outside for a short time in shade one day, a longer time the next day, and eventually have them in direct sun for a few hours. This lets them get used to sun and wind gradually.

Are you getting your tomatoes planted outside before the full heat of summer arrives? Plants transplant better in cool conditions than in hot weather. Transplanting cannot avoiding damaging the root system, making it hard for the plant to take up water.

It sounds like you got a lot of good advice. Don't be too hard on yourself. I've been gardening for years. Last year I changed my raised beds to hugel beets, and this year I over watered most of the summer. Sometimes you get it right, and sometimes you don't.  I like to watch YouTube videos of gardening what I want to plant, as close to where I live as I can find.  It helps get tip and tricks that will actually help you.  Example I grew up in W Washington State.  I now live in N. California. Pretty much nun of the garden knowledge I learned from my parents apply.
Don't give up. As discouraging as it can be, gardening is always a learning experience, and so very rewording when it works out.  Good luck. Happy gardening.

G.W. Farnum wrote:

My neighbor gets better yields than me but his plants don't keep producing. They die shortly after he picks the first time. He claims that there is a fungus in the soil that limits the life of tomato plants in our area.

Certain soil fungi are a real problem for tomatoes; if these are endemic to your area, you’ll get better results by choosing resistant varieties. Many garden catalogs will mark varieties as resistant to the most common fungi verticillium and fusarium. Look for a v or f symbol.

I talked with a local gardener today. His take on my problem is two-fold. I'm planting too late in the spring and the temp is getting too high. He said that tomatoes don't fruit well above 90°.

He also said I need varieties resistant to nematodes, tomato yellow leaf curl, grey leaf spot, early blight and fusarium wilt.

He recommended Celebrity, Early Doll and Bella Rosa varieties.

Your local gardener has given you good advice. Use resistant varieties of tomato, and get them in the ground as soon as possible after you are confident last frost has passed.

If you think nematodes are your problem you may try planting french marigolds amongst the tomatoes. They are said to help. It never hurts to add pollinators.

I was also wondering how deep your raised beds are?  There are lots of shallow raised beds on the market.  I have never had good luck with tomatoes in a bed that isn't at least 2' deep. They will grow just about anywhere, but they do best with a deep bed, at least that's what I have experienced.

My raised beds are sitting directly on top of 18" deep soil. The bed itself has about 10" of soil, compost and manure so about 28" of soil before you get to Georgia red clay.

Also, this has been happening in my hydroponic/aqua panic setups so this could be a multifaceted problem.

Quoted from Sandra Perrin's book Organic Gardening in Cold Climates, she describes the three "big" nutrients for plant growth:

Plants need nitrogen for above-ground growth. [...] Potassium is also essential for healthy root development, as well as helping plants protect themselves from disease. [...] Phosphorous is indispensable for the early and healthy development of plants, including root formation.

Were I to consider this advice in regards to you and your neighbour's tomato issues: it seems like your plants likely have plenty of nitrogen, but may be lacking in one of the other two, and in particular phosphorous.

Perrin also notes in her book that a couple powerful sources of Phosphoric Acid (which should be applied sparingly, she notes) would be fish meal, cottonseed meal, and - of all things - bat guano. Would you consider a soil amendment path? Might you have some local sources for this you can apply in preparation for next season?

G.W. Farnum wrote:I talked with a local gardener today. His take on my problem is two-fold. I'm planting too late in the spring and the temp is getting too high. He said that tomatoes don't fruit well above 90°.

He also said I need varieties resistant to nematodes, tomato yellow leaf curl, grey leaf spot, early blight and fusarium wilt.

He recommended Celebrity, Early Doll and Bella Rosa varieties.

I agree with your neighbor. It was a surprise to me to learn that tomatoes do not love high heat, and won't produce when it's above 90. When I first started gardening in North Carolina, I was bowled over when people started bringing giant bags of tomatoes to church (because they had too many) in April and May and I was only just planting my first seedlings. My poor little seedlings struggled through the summer and finally produced a crop of fruit in October that year.

In addition to your neighbor's advice, looking into determinate varieties would suit you too. These varieties will give one massive crop all about the same time, rather than indeterminate ones that continue to produce a few tomatoes over a longer period of time. With a determinate plant, you would look at the days to fruit on the seed packet and start your seeds to give them enough time to mature before your weather gets into the 80's and 90's. Then probably get rid of the plants (because of the diseases in your area) and start some new plants timed to mature when your weather starts to cool off in the fall, and you can get two main crops a year. Depending on your exact weather, you might be able to grow indeterminate tomatoes throughout the winter. If you get the right cherry tomato varieties, those you can definitely grow throughout the winter.

You have some great opportunities with your climate to grow year round and if you make some mistakes, you have lots of time to try again. So don't lose hope! 😁 There are some beautiful plants to grow in the high heat of summer there- sweet potatoes, peanuts, okra, spicy peppers are some of the ones that come to mind.

I wonder if it would be worthwhile to get your soil tested and see if there are mineral imbalances that you could correct. I have seen a couple of videos of gardeners who are on new property and did soil testing for a couple of years to even out too much calcium or not enough of something else.  The book The Intelligent Gardener by Steve Solomon seem to cover that topic pretty thoroughly  and for brevity's sake I will add videos that discuss this in separate posts.

David the Good addressing soil imbalances:

And Ariel at Fy Nyth, in a very different geographical area does the same:

Soil testing is something that I have been thinking about. I'll have find out where this can be done. I believe there is a county or state program in the area that does this.

I have read several of David the Good's books. I should probably re-read them.

My concern is that the same thing is happening in my hydroponic system that is set up for tomatoes. The media that I am using is a commercial product  specifically formulated for growing tomatoes so I know the nutrients are correct. The plants in my aquaponic unit do the same thing also.  

An interesting side note is that I cut back a squash plant that did not produce this year in the aquaponics unit. I noticed this week that it is starting to bud for the first time.

I just ordered a copy of The Intelligent Gardener. Looks interesting.

I wonder if it could be your water?  It just seems like that's the common denominator???

Jen Fulkerson wrote:I wonder if it could be your water?  It just seems like that's the common denominator???

Hmmm. I never thought of that but that could be it. But my neighbor has 5ft tall tomato plants and we each draw from a well. My well water is aerated to get the gases out of it. I'll have to see if my neighbor treats his differently.

Maybe this will help spark some ideas about your soil. It's an excerpt form Helen Atthowe's Garden master course:

I finally got it all together. Between my neighbor and David the Good's books I had a really good tomato harvest this year. This is what we got over the last couple of days. About the same each week for the last month or so.

That's awesome.  I'm glad your tomatoes are producing well for you.  It can be so disheartening to try so hard, and come up empty handed.  The most important thing is you didn't give up.  I think that is so important.  No matter what experience level we are, we all have that plant that gives us trouble. Or one year something we have always been able to grow fails.  We have to just keep trying.  
I bet an abundance of ripe tomatoes was extra gratifying for you. Great job!  I'm jealous by the way. So far all I have ripe are cherry tomatoes.  Happy gardening

G.W. Farnum wrote:I talked with a local gardener today. His take on my problem is two-fold. I'm planting too late in the spring and the temp is getting too high. He said that tomatoes don't fruit well above 90°.

He also said I need varieties resistant to nematodes, tomato yellow leaf curl, grey leaf spot, early blight and fusarium wilt.

He recommended Celebrity, Early Doll and Bella Rosa varieties.

I planted better boy plus and big beef plus now for the past two seasons and must say that they are the most disease resistance I've ever seen and I've planted a lot of varieties of tomatoes.
I ordered the seeds off jm shumay. I've got ten of each planted along with 50 others of different types.ive not had to cut one yellow leaf from them yet but have already cut and sprayed my others several times.