A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum The Tomato Forum What happend to my Tomato plants?

They've been in the ground since end of May and were doing lovely, about 2 ft tall. A few days ago I seen atleast one plant whose leaves were slightly curled with purplish undersides. Today it and a another tomato plant is toast, as in shrivelled and dried up. We have had a lot of rain lately. I planted less this year so have only about 4-5 plants left. There is another tomato plant with tons of flowers on it, which is also displaying purplish undersides and appears like it is shrivelling as well. what can I do to save it?

How's the pH in the soil? Tomatoes require deep loamy soils with pH levels between 6.2 and 6.8. A phosphorus deficiency in the soil can slow the growth of tomato plants while they are still young. a lack of phosphorus can cause the leaves to develop purple tones on the undersides and turn a pale shade of green or yellow the top.

You could try to correct this by amending the topsoil with fertilizer (about 3 lbs of fertilizer per 100 square feet of garden soil). You'll want to choose a complete fertilizer with a nutrient ratio of 5-10-10 or 5-20-20 and you'll want to incorporating it into the garden soil several weeks before you plant tomatoes.

Thanks, I will consider the advice. Is it too late to fertilize once the tomatoes are in?
The ones I lost are no longer worth saving but I do have a 3rd one that is sickly looking in the same way the first one was.

besides having under sided purplish leaves, the leaves are curling cupping upward, would a phosphorus deficiency cause this?

All of our tomatoes are grown in pots on the porch, so I'm not 100% sure; I'd dig up the plant, amend the soil, then re-plant it and take care of it like you would any transplant.

There is some information here on causes for your tomato leaves curling, there are several reasons and thus multiple steps depending on an exact issue.

So you know it's not from lack of water so it has to be some type of wilt. You can google tomato wilt and figure out what kind you have and how to fix it.

Try putting paper around the tomato at the bottom..If its some sort of stuff in the soil, it wont bounce it up on your bottom leaves......I have one tomato plant yellow leaves on the bottom.. Only one.. Rest are pure green.I am confused of that..

Gremelin, I have some tomato fertilizer on hand but it is 6-8-14 with phoshoric acid being 8, potash 14. I have another fertilizer by Plant Smart with is 20-20-20. Are any of these good enough to use to work into the soil?