Cori,
I personally let the plants try to tell me what they need. I am no expert and am still learning myself.
If a tomato is not flowering:
- Could be low on your NPK
> It's easiest just to add a well-finished
compost, worm castings, insect frass, or aerobic/anaerobic tea. Trying to guess exactly what minerals are deficient is
putting too much "human" into natures work.
Check drainage, is your soil holding water or is it dry? Very easy to test just get out there and stick your fingers a couple inches deep.
> Watering too often causes shallow root structures and doesn't allow nature to take it's course... Nature wants to set deep roots that tap into the clay layer that is storing the minerals leeched from the humus layer.
This is what I do:
1. If it's
brown or
yellow ->
cut it off - if possible..
- Stop watering, check the soil with my fingers multiple times a day
> If it continues to yellow or brown after a week without rain, take it out and move it / replace it (I don't want it to spread to healthy of the same variety)
2. If leaves are green, not open and accepting to the sun, droopy but not yellow or brown.
- Add water
- Add compost
3. If the leaves are purple underneath, curling and starting to yellow
- Roots are not getting to the nutrients they need
- Pot up, move to larger area
- Add compost
This is my advice.
Plant more than you want to grow... a lot more. Try to do as little work as possible. When something dies... it teaches you a lesson. Work the problem area to combat that issue specific to what was seeded/transplanted or plant something else there.