Yellow Leaves

[Vanessa Thompson (pomare)]

ok for the life of me, i cant find a post on just yellow leaves??? Maybe ive missed it?
My seedlings of zuks and sunflower (and a few other flower plants on the yard) All have yellow leaves.
Its like they are missing something from their diet's........no other signs of bugs or worrys but just going yellow from center and outwards to ends of leaves?

Help please. whats missing from their diets. (im useing, worm wee, EM, flovic powder, seaweed and first time use of mirical grow stuff and all have a good balance of mushroom compost mainly, seed raise mix where ive made hole, and remaining half of potting mix and manure mix in pots.
(still going to make up some liquid compost with moo poo, banana peels, comfry and worm castings)

[Elaine de Saxe]

Hooley dooley, sounds rich enough! A pic, perhaps?

[Elaine de Saxe]

Further thoughts ... I recall you asking about yellow leaves on a baby plant and I said they were the cotyledons (first leaves from the seed) and that was normal. I guess that what you are asking about now is a more mature plant. Anyway ... you can put too much fert in a garden or pot. Ask me! I'm the Queen of Potash and I have been known to plaster far too much of it about and the plants have looked peaky in a different way to when they are short of Potash ... so I'm guessing here in the absence of pix that you might have too much nutrients. Now plants need water before they need nutrients - just like us, their bodies are made of water with other things just like ours are. So check watering first and for future experiments, add one nutrient at a time and observe the effects. That way you'll gain an appreciation of what the nutrients do and how the plants respond to them.

[Scarlett Patrick]

if you hit 'all discussions' you can search them by key words. i put 'nutrients' in and got a few relevant posts. yellow leaves might come up with some too.

the important thing is it new leaves or old leaves. if it's old leaves then it's probably nitrogen deficiency and you need to add more compost/ manure. your liquid compost would do it. if it's not it's probably a pH induced deficiency, or possibly an oversupply of something. a mix of homemade organic supplements makes it hard to track down like Elaine said. My worm castings always did unpredictable things as a liquid feed (often got potassium toxicity), sends plants a sort of pinkish colour.

it sounds like nitrogen to me at this point...try a liquid manure application to see if they pick up - you should be able to see within a couple of days. if they do, sounds like you need to top dress with manure/ compost.

[Vanessa Thompson (pomare)]

im wondering if its a matter of over watering? ive cut back on the water, as they are in pots not the garden that seems to want it all the time. and they seem to be picking back up.
is there such a thing as over doing it with the manure and compost???

[Elaine de Saxe]

Yes, there is! Plants need water first and the nutrients second. But with some plants too much water is too much and they kark it, others can cope. A happy medium is what's needed - if you can figure that one out! I never have been able to and have found out what's too much or not enough the hard way - or hard on the plants, anyway. This is called a 'learning curve' ;-) and when you stop learning you stop living in this reality.

[Addy]

I push a finger into the soil and if it comes out with soil sticking to it, I don't water...

[Vanessa Thompson (pomare)]

ok something is very wrong with these plants.......now they are already starting to produce flowers.......they are still seedlings in my eyes. Only small zuk plants still and with only about 8 leaves each????
Should i pull these plants or leave them???? Is this the same thing as going to bolt??

[Donna]

No, zukes don't go to bolt as such... if they are flowering I would leave them to produce personally.

If you are concerned the plant is too small you could try cutting off the female flowers so *hopefully* all nutrients go into it growing bigger rather than fruit... that is what you do for young fruit trees anyway lol

[Elaine de Saxe]

With a fruit tree I'd do as Donna suggests but with a short-term annual like a Zucchini, I'd be doing a rain dance and saying "thank you" to the goddess of melons!

The 'bolting' thing is with leaf crops eg lettuce or root crops eg beetroot and once that centre starts growing upwards it's time to either pull them out or leave them to seed if you're saving seed. With plants which fruit (and even tomatoes are 'fruit' botanically - anything with a seed is a good rule of thumb to describe a 'fruit') can be left to mature that fruit for seed saving or the fruit is cut and used at whatever stage you prefer.