I apologize for not doing the photo's correctly! Here they are again in the same order as above:

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Can you give us your watering amounts and schedule, type of fertilizer, your geographic location

I presume you are zone 5; so am I.

Looks like not much else is growing by your garden; is that something you caused to happen or is there nothing growing there naturally?

d in colo springs.

I have a very similar thing going on with one of my plants (Amish Paste). It does not seem to be an over or under-watering issue, or a heat issue.

Ferret, are you sure it's wilty and not just Amish Paste being, well, Amish Paste? Apparently, it has pretty droopy, wispy foliage,and mine certainly fits that description.

The stem shot concerns me a bit but other than that they dont look too bad. Are you top watering? If so I would recommend stop doing that. I would try a deep watering and see if they bounce back. Use a hose and turn on the water so it trickles out the hose and leave it for 30-60 minutes per plant. Thats all I can recommend right now, hope they come out of this, good luck.

Damon

i feel for you! im pretty upset about my plants at the moment. I have been researching to find out what is wrong with mine, and thought these sites might help:

1.) http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/diagnostickeys/TomWlt/TomWiltKey.html

2.) http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Publications/PM1266.pdf

3.) http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/min-def/list.htm

I know I have seen a picture recently that looks like your stem above. I can't remember what, but it was a disease. I tried to go back through my googling to find it, but no luck. hope you figure out whats wrong, and that you can catch it in time!

You need to MULCH those plants with something organic preferably. All that bare earth is going to exacerbate any watering problems you might have and just waste water.

That stem concerns me, too. It sure looks like Bacterial Pit Necrosis, though I don't know if that's actually the problem or not.

Here is information about other various wilts that may be useful.

Are they near a walnut tree?

In my case, I am certain it is not a whispyness issue. I have some Yellow Pear, and another Amish Paste that are whispy and do get a little wilty in the heat. This Amish Paste was not whispy and was previously lush and healthy looking, even during the hottest days. This plant is not recovering when the temperatures cool down.

You can see how healthy this plant was just 4 days ago (2nd from the left):
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Two days ago I noticed a lot of the foliage was wilty, and a couple of lower leaves were completely wilted and yellow. I moved it away form the other plants, pruned the badly wilted leaves, checked the moisture level (seemed ok).

Yesterday, more foliage had wilted, so I pruned again, and also lifted up the mulch lid to check conditions. It seemed OK, but the water roots coming out the bottom were orange-brown instead of white like most of my other plants.

I'll try testing for bacterial wilt later today.

...also the wilting foliage was not limited to lower leaves, but included leaves throughout the plant, including growing tips and some smaller suckers. It looked very much like OP's 4th picture.

I dug up a plant and took it into the Penn State Cooperative Extension office and they guy there looked at it (the Master Gardeners will not be in until tomorrow) And he is pretty sure it is either Verticillium wilt or Fusarium wilt, but he said he would send it to the lab to find out for sure what is going on.

Yes, I am in Zone 5...Central Pennsylvania, about 40 miles east of State College.

As for the "top watering" no I do not top water, I put the hose under the plant near the stalk and water there.

As for not much else growing nearby...the tomatoes pictured are Rutgers, and I was told they are known to sprawl so I allowed three feet on either sides of them, that is why you don't see anything else growing. I do have an abundant variety of various kinds of squash growing and they are doing quite well. My cucumbers are another story...I am getting a few here an there but they keep wilting and dying as well (the guy at the Co-op told me that is usually from cucumber beetles and he advised spraying for that and alternating between different types of insecticide as they can become resistant).

He said once they start to wilt, nothing will bring them back, and it is best to just dig them up and burn them and next year plant the tomatoes in a different area of the garden. It seems to be primarily two varieties that are affected, the Rutgers and the Early Girl. So far I have two more plants that have started to wilt. I am thinking of replacing and just putting the replacements in 5 gallon pails that way I am sure to get SOME tomatoes this year. He didn't seem to think all 26 of my plants would die as he said some varieties are affected worse than others. So I am anxious to hear back and find out exactly what is going on with my tomato plants.

Walnut tree: The closest black walnut tree is 60 feet from where these particular plants are growing. I asked him about that issue and he said his tomatoes are closer than that to a walnut tree and unaffected. They are well away from the drip line of the tree and there are closer tomato plants that are flourishing!

Re: walnut tree 60 feet away: Have you tried to spade the soil deeply between the Walnut (and other trees?) and your toms to see if tree roots have invaded your toms' territory?

My plant continues to decline.

I cut off a stem and put it in water, but no cloudiness, so it's not Bacterial Wilt. It did have a brown streak in the center, so my best guess is Fusarium Wilt. I can't figure out how it would have gotten it since it's in a container with a soil-less mix.

I think I'm going to have pull it and throw out the mix, then sterilize the container and cage.

Normally I'd post photos, but having issues with that today.

I don't see any drain holes about 4-5" up on those outer buckets. Not saying they aren't there because they could easily be on the other side. Root rot will cause this and a dark streak in the center of the plant.

Yes, drain holes are there, and mix is definitely not over saturated. I have about 20 tomatoes in identical containers, and all are doing very well.

I heard back from the master gardener. They looked at my plant sample under the microscope and it is Verticillium Wilt, unfortunately nothing can be done about it unless you fumigate your soil, which unless you are a commercial grower isn't worth it. Only thing to do is buy resistant varieties of tomatoes, try planting in a different area of the garden or container plant.

That's awful. I'm also going to drop off mine at the Penn State Cooperative Extension office.

Here's some lower quality pics from my phone:
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Walnut tree roots can extend well beyond the drip line. You can plant close, and get lucky sometimes. Other times you don't get so lucky. I think the closer you plant, the more likely your plants will be affected. I always figure the roots could extend a distance equal to about the height of the tree. I don't know if that's accurate though. I posted a link that says some cucumbers can also be affected. The guy listed some other stuff too.

Here is a link that might be useful: walnut wilt info from wildmanfarm

I finally pulled my Amish Paste yesterday:
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I took it to the Penn State Extension Office this morning, and they didn't find any sign of disease or insect damage. The Master Gardner thinks the problem was a wound at the base of the stem. When I pruned off a lower leaf, a strip of the stem came with it, and as the plant grew so did the scar. I guess the plant finally got too big for the damaged stem to supply enough water and nutrients to support it. We also noticed BER on some of the fruit, another indication of nutrient supply problems (also common on Paste varieties so nothing conclusive).

So far, no signs of this problem on other plants.

The moral of the story, 'prune carefully'.

Wow. Mine are doing this for the 2nd year. Not all of them but I do not have any to spare.
With a small garden and not a lot of moving room what (if anything) can be done to reduce the risk for next year?

Thanks George