WDRB answers your tomato questions with Wallitsch Gardens

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Tomatoes of all kinds are a staple in many gardens, but sometimes they just don’t grow like they should.

Jeff Wallitsch of Wallitsch Gardens is helping answer some viewer questions to keep your tomatoes growing to perfection.

Question: Why do my tomatoes crack?

Wallitsch: That's always the question that we get and a lot of it has to do with watering. So when your tomatoes start to set, you want to make sure that you have consistent water.

Question: Why are my tomatoes not turning red? We were about three weeks late planting and the small cherry tomatoes are turning, but not the beef steaks? Plenty of sun, watering, checking moisture.

Wallitsch: What's great about Kentucky weather is one day we’re a nice 70 degrees, then the next day we're 110 degrees. So a lot of it has to do with them not ripening because of the weather. When we get into the higher 80s into the 90s, all of your plants are going to start to slow down. They're not going to ripen as quick because they're saving their energy to survive throughout the summer. Your cherry tomatoes are a lot smaller so they're going to ripen quicker just because of the size.

Question: Tomatoes are dying, watered them every day. Why are my tomato plants not producing tomatoes this year? I had some green ones, but now the plants are turning brown. I usually have an awesome crop.

Wallitsch: With tomatoes, it's one of those things where you need to make sure that you rotate your crop yearly. So you can't plant tomatoes in the same place you planted them last year. Or the plants that you got, could have just been not really good specimens this year.

Question: Tomato plant is dying, watered it in dry weather. Planted in black plastic sheet.

Wallitsch: To me probably with that questions, the roots are staying too hot. And if the tomato is hot, it’s not going to produce a lot and it's going to take forever for them to ripen. Stay away from any plastic liner or plastic sheet for weedmat. You want to do something that’s natural like mulch, or newspaper, grass clippings.

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