I'm by no means an expert, but I think your containers are too small for indeterminate tomatoes. I grow in the ground and they get over six feet tall. They'll only thrive as long as the roots have room to grow. If you pull one out you'll probably see bound roots.

Caryl

Caryl--
Thanks for feedback. These are 5 gallon containers. Everything I read about container growing said this should do it.

I did read about the heat killing off the root ball and I was wondering if the deck heat in the day, which must get close to 90 or 100 F, might have killed back the root ball.

I have pulled out some that have died and the root ball was only about the size of a small volleyball.

These Grow Pots are supposed to encourage the roots out to the sides, since the sides absorb water too, rather than in a circle at the bottom of the pot.

I thought the Grow Pots would do much better than the containers I had, but they both are fizzling out.

Lora

This is how they were doing on 5/16/2012. Would this closeness of plants kill them off?

Lora

Lora, what kind of potting mix do you have in the grow pots and containers? How much were you watering?

I am no expert but there are a few mistakes here. First of all, you should have fermented the seeds from store tomatoes to prevent disease. Secondly, watering overhead is never a good idea for tomatoes. The moisture and humidity encourages all sorts of fungal disease. At this point, it is hard to tell what kind you may have because all the leaves are gone.

Ikea--

I used Kellogg All Natural Garden Soil. I watered every other or every day, depending on sun.

I did realize overhead watering isn't ideal, I just didn't have a way to do it otherwise--had to break off the sprayer at end of hose (so no way to connect to watering system). Hose also stuck on faucet. (Do ya think we have a problem with hoses?)

I could pull off some of the leaves and take pictures but they didn't seem to have veiny look of infested leaves, they just seemed to dry up and wither. I can crumble them easily, but I made sure to throw away what I took off in case they were infected with something.

There were a few plants where the fruit showed mottling--which is sign of another problem, but that was just one or two of the plants.

As to fermenting the seeds, wouldn't any kind of fungal diseases or problems show up when the plants were seedlings and larger? I didn't see any indication of that while they were growing. I read about how to do it on the web. Other than rinse off the tomato juice and pull out any chunks of tomato, it said they could be planted as is. And they ALL came up--150 of them. I really didn't expect it to work, so this is all kind of an experiment.

Lora

Well I guess this is information I could have gotten a long time ago, but these tomatoes (fresh, from which I took seeds) were a Campari--a hybrid indeterminate. But, not remaining true generationally, they apparently reverted to a determinate offspring.

Duh.

So I guess I start all over this summer! It was good while it lasted. Got at least 250 pounds of tomatoes.

Hybrids are very common in store bought tomatoes, the reason you never know what you'll get when you plant them.

Yeah, Capoman--

This is information I could have gotten. Although I had read it I felt that if there were a problem, they just wouldn't seed properly.

Now if I again take these seeds, am I sure I will get just the type I got last time--the determinate (apparently) that are part of this hybrid? I don't have anything to lose now and since I'm on an island and seeds or plants not available, I am wondering if I can come up with something that will do well here.

These did produce a LOT of fruit.

Do you think it's worth experimenting? If these are determinate, they can probably make it through another full season here, as it never really gets below 50F at night--at least not until November.

Oh well, it's a learning process. And it has been fun. Nothing better than watching babies grow up!

Lora

I have a similar problem-yellowing of tomato leaves at the bottom. I have 3 plants in the veg. garden and a pumpkin has self-seeded next to them. Both tomatoes and pumpkin need lots of feeding so I have put the blame on the pumpkin. I'm not going to move the pumpkin so I am going to feed both of them tomorrow with squashed - up comfrey leaves (masses of it here) which has been soaking in a bit of water . This is an experiment so hope it works.

The pots were too small and black and July is hot. If you got 250 pounds of tomatoes that you liked, you did fine. I think you could order seeds; I don't understand why seeds are not available.

Those tomato plants are HISTORY. it all happened in the summer of 2012.