Some of my tomatoes are failing to thrive. Purple stems, a purple cast to the leaves, and necrotic spots on leaves that progressively turn more yellow -- these symptoms seem consistent with phosphorous deficiency.
Back in April, I discovered that garden loam isn't good for gardening -- after having five cubic yards of it dumped next to my waiting raised-beds. It was mostly clay. Not so good for growing things. So I then found a place to deliver four cubic yards of compost. All the extra loam pushed me to add a few beds. I mixed the loam with the compost. But a couple of the beds are filled with about 95% of the sub-standard loam. The tomato pictured above is struggling to grow in one of those beds. I did mix a little fertilizer into the bed. But it probably wasn't enough.
I also found some grubs while I was digging up the sod for my beds. And there were some grubs in the loam. I squished any that I saw. However, last week, I pulled up an eggplant that just hadn't grown at all. There was hardly any root ball -- and a very lively grub was nestled in what was left of the roots -- very unhappy to be disturbed. I put an end to its unhappiness. So maybe more grubs are eating at the roots of some of my plants. If the roots are being eaten, then the plants will also have trouble absorbing water and nutrients.
One of the tomatoes that I planted in a pot with 100% sterile, pre-fertilized, store-bought garden soil is doing great. It's the control subject.
So I have saturated the soil with fish emulsion. I got a nice local brand, Neptune's Harvest. It's basically rotten fish syrup that gets mixed with water. It should start to get the nutrients in the soil up to where they should be. And a UPS truck should be bringing me a delivery of nematodes sometime today. I'll just have to wait for a wet day to get them into the soil. The nematodes are parasitic worms that will infect the grubs and eat them from the inside. Fish, worms: it's all circle of life here.
