# Gardening problem: tomatoes

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gardening-problem-tomatoes/24728>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 6, 2000, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gardening-problem-tomatoes/24728 "2000-07-06T07:46:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![labdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@labdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/labdude)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2000, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gardening-problem-tomatoes/24728/21 "2000-07-08T15:10:44Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Libertarian \*  
> \*\*It has been my experience that tomatoes that are refrigerated become mealy and lose a lot of their flavor. That might explain store bought tomato blandness. There is nothing quite like a sandwich made with Merita bread, Duke’s mayonnaise, black pepper, and slices of a freshly picked home-grown tomato.
> 
> Edlyn and I will have ours soon! \*\*

About the OP, I grow tommatos and it sould like too much heat, not enough water, ot too much nitrogen. They make special low nitrogen tomato fertilizer.

About Merita bread, My father works for this company (a subsidiary of IBC) and they treat their union employees very well. So buy more merita!!!

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**Author:** ![Barney111](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@Barney111](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barney111)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2000, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gardening-problem-tomatoes/24728/22 "2000-07-08T15:36:44Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Since I’m up on a 2nd story deck, I don’t tend to get any bugs so I don’t use pesticides (aside from exhaling tobacco smoke over them once in a while, just for a mild bug repellent).

Most tomato cultivars are _highly_ intolerant of tobacco smoke. Most gardening books emphasize that you shouldn’t smoke around tomato plants, and if you smoke(I do, and I grow alot of tomatoes)to wash your hands thoroughly before touching the plants.

Tomatoes are naturally “allergic” to compounds in tobacco, and can catch Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV), which will slowly kill them. Mottled leaves and blossom drop are a couple of symptoms.

Alot of modern tomato varieties have been bred or inoculated for resistance to TMV, but it’s still not a good idea to tempt fate.

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**Author:** ![PRISM02](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@PRISM02](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PRISM02)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2000, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gardening-problem-tomatoes/24728/23 "2000-07-08T18:39:16Z")

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You have heat related blossom drop.

You can use the spray, but the effects are somewhat iffy. I suggest you fertilize your plants heavily with JOBS tomato fertilizer and use Epsom Salts and iron also. Water it in well. Use Jobs in heavy concentration about once every two weeks.

Next time, get a Henry Fields Catalogue and order heat resistant, virus, nematode and infection resistant seeds. They’re cheap. I bought two packs and they blossomed well while my regular tomatoes lost their. My harvest has been astounding!

I made one error, in that being used to regular seeds, I planted the plants too close together, expecting many to die off. They did not!

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