what the heck is going on with my zucchini, and my maters

is it normal for a zucchini plant to produce flowers and leaves but not any vines? see pic below. also the leaves are kinda yellowish instead of green. after much research i came to the conclusion that i have a mineral deficiancy. i used some miracle grow yesterday and bought bone meal, blood meal, and epsom salt. my tomatoes also look funny. so my qustions are:

1. zucchini with out vines- normal or not?
2. yellow leaves on zucchini- mineral issues or something else? if something else, what?
3. whats wrong with my tomatoes? minerals also? something else?
4. best way to use blood meal, bone meal, and epson salts @ this point.



flowers but no vines, yellow leaves





tomato plant leaves, kind of tough and thick, mottled with light green



leaves curling over alot


also- zucchini is the billiards mix, and this tomato is a heirloom beefsteak (indeterninate), my other tomato is a victorian roma (not sure if det or indet). zucchini was started from seeds by me, and the tomatoes were bought at different places.

nursekat424 wrote: is it normal for a zucchini plant to produce flowers and leaves but not any vines? so my qustions are:

1. zucchini with out vines- normal or not?
2. yellow leaves on zucchini- mineral issues or something else? if something else, what?
3. whats wrong with my tomatoes? minerals also? something else?
4. best way to use blood meal, bone meal, and epson salts @ this point.

Click here for leaf curl info
Answers: question 1) this appears to be a normal growth pattern.
2)The yellowing leaves leads my first thought to nutrition deficiency. have you tested your soil? it could be a single problem or multiple issues. A soil test will help by giving you information so you can provide specific treatment.
3) Same as answer 2, but could also be indicative of disease.I would check the soil first.
4) as with all products, I encourage you to read the label instructions. If it was me adding these amendments now I would a) test the soil, b) if all these things are called for I would add 1 TBSP of each around each individual plant stem by sprinkling out from the stem 4" either side then work into the soil with a hand cultivator. At this point I would swap out the bone meal for powdered milk.

When I made my mix in my boxes I had the peat/vermiculite growing mix and 2 or 3 ( can't remember just now) types of compost. I poured it all together then added by sprinkling dried blood, bone meal and just a little bit of wood ash into the mix. When I planted the tomatoes I added 1 TBSP epsom salt, 1+ TBSP powdered milk and per a suggestion of another member, I added a match head to each hole before placing the plant. The results so far have been more than satisfactory. Here is my new garden on July 1, 2010.
You can see the full image in the gallery.
Good luck!!! and let us know what you find out.

Oh yeah, some of the heirloom paste tomatoes like your Roma may have foliage that does naturally curl. This is a Gilbertie paste tomato and if you look behind the fruit you can see that the leaf does have a natural curl to it.

The zucchini I bought from the big box store is doing exactly the same thing: leaves yellow, hasn't grown much for vines, and has a blossom already. My other zucchini which I started from seed is the opposite: nice healthy green leaves, longer vines but no blossom.

I actually moved the store plant to a different spot in the garden because I thought it may not be getting enough sun. I fed all the plants fish & seaweed fertilizer last week, then today I sprinkled Tomato Tone around the zukes when I was refreshing the tomato automators, because I read somewhere that zucchini like the same food as tomatoes. I'll let you know if there are improvements.

From Rodale's Vegetable Problem Solver book: "...if plants are infected with beet curly top virus, the rolled leaves will become stiff and yellowed. Check leaf undersides--veins may turn purple. (see beet curly top)." There are a bunch of different viruses and bacterial diseases that can plague tomato plants....

Zucchini plants are usually more bush-like than vining. The one pictured below has been producing for over a month. The upper arrow shows where the plant emerges from the ground, and the lower one the end of the "vine" -- it's only about a foot long, and I've harvested 5 or 6 zukes off it so far. The stem (vine) will continue to grow. Another in a more fertile bed is about 2' long and I've harvested a dozen or more from it. These are black beauty zukes. 6 weeks ago it looked very much like yours, and I thought it was a goner. I dosed it with a Miracle Grow clone every two weeks and side-dressed with rabbit manure.

That's a beauty Belfrybat!!!!

Just an update - the zucchini I moved to a sunnier spot and fed tomato food is already looking better. I can't say which solution is responsible but it could be both - see below some leaves are turning greener:

HOORAY!

i fed mine miracle grow a cpl days ago and since i had extra stuff i mixed up a tote full of MM today and added blood meal, bone meal, and epsons salts to it and top dressed most of my squares. and a cpl weeks ago i added some liquid calcium stuff to my bucket as i watered them. so i think i have all the minerals covered now. so we shall see how they do. the roma tom seems to be doing better after the miracle grow. so fingers crossed this will help. everything else in my garden is doing great. just these 3 plants are having issues. strange. will keep you updated.

oh yeah and have been using fungicide 3 (a neem oil product) also. just in casr it was bugs or a fungus causing it. and all of my garden area is in full sun. so it's def not lack of sun. thanks all for the input.




Edit- after thinking about it i went out and snapped a pic for comparison. it is looking better. not as green as yours msminchin, but better. hopefully it will continue to improve. yay. heres a pic to show the improvement