Oh dear. I had a bad veg week. Firstly I was away for the weekend, and then I was ill in bed for a couple of days. My veg patch suffered. There are now weeds everywhere, and it’s all a bit unruly, but the biggest casualty by far is my greenhouse full of tomato plants. My tomatoes are growing (or wilting as the case may be) in pots and they didn’t do too well without water over the last few days. I thought they’d be ok as it actually wasn’t that hot or sunny, but I was a little surprised when I opened the door to the greenhouse this morning and found a bunch of sorry looking, droopy leaves peering out at me. My poor tomatoes! Have I ruined them?!
I gave them some water immediately, most of it ran straight out of the pots again because the soil was so dry. I left it a couple of minutes and gave them another soaking. All good. But nevertheless I was concerned to know what damage I might have caused and I did a little Google based investigation. Here’s what I learnt:
- Tomatoes are 95% water. Who knew?!
- Inconsistent watering can lead to blossom end rot because the plants don’t get enough calcium. Blossom end rot is when your tomatoes get a dark circular patch on their bottoms. I don’t think I want blossom end rot.
- Inconsistent watering, and particularly a long dry spell with wilting, can lead to tomatoes splitting.
I don’t think it’ll be the end of the world, but I will definitely be trying my hardest to look after my babies a bit better going forwards!