The leaf curl may be a separate issue from the spots.

One of the reasons leaf curl can happen is when root to shoot growth gets out of balance. This can happen in container bound plants. Leaf curl can also be variety related.

Have to know more about spots to tell you anything.

It helps to have a wide shot of the effected area and a good, in focus close up of the spots.

Hi Laura,

Curl usually indicates stress in a plant, often as a result of being water logged (the most common cause we see here on GardenWeb.) How is the growing medium moisture at 3-4" below the surface? If that is not the issue, are there any other discolorations on the plants?

According to The Colorado State Uninversity Extension Office "Septoria leaf spot is . . . a fungal disease. Characteristic symptoms are white or gray spots on leaves, surrounded by a black or brown margin. Control is similar to early blight."

Pictures really would be helpful.

Betsy

I had a similar problem, with lots of tiny white spots on the leaves and some curling. I thought it was sun scald but I looked under the leaves with a strong magnifier and saw hundreds of spider mites on each leaf. I sprayed a couple of times with Organocide and it seems to be under control. Whatever you use, follow instructions and measure ingredients carefully. My bush beans were also badly infected. I just ordered a 30x loupe on ebay and when it arrives I will be able to do a much better inspection. They are incredibly small. A spider mite life cycle varies from 30 days when it is cool weather to an astounding 5 days when weather is hot and dry. So the population can explode in a few short weeks.

You can google 'spider mites' for lots of info. It is sometimes recommended to wash them off with frequent water applications, but this of course can cause lots of diseases.

Bob B.

Here are the pics.

Valencia with funky curled leaves and tiny white dots on leaves

closer view

tried to do a close up...

green zebra is starting to curl up too

Any help greatly appreciated... I know the phot quality is not great...
Laura

Laura,

If in ground plants are not affected, I would venture to say it is not insects or disease, although both will show up sooner in stressed plants.

What kind of drainage do your containers have? I don't see any drainage holes on the sides and where they are directly on the grass or soil, any holes in the bottom may not be sufficient. How is the growing medium moisture level about 3-4" under the surface of the medium?

If you think poking a finger that far down into the dirt might disturb your plants, or the roots are such that you can't get down that far without damaging them, GardenWebber sprouts_honor (Jennifer from Cleveland) had a wonderful suggestion on how to tell whether or not you need to water your tomatoes, and I quote here: "Get a wooden dowel rod (or two) and sink it in the ground near a plant or two and leave it. Pull it out when you think you need to water. If the top is dry and the bottom is a little damp, it's time to water. If it looks dark and feels saturated, wait to water. I use this technique with potted plants that don't like being over watered and it's helpful with in ground plants too."

As I said before, the most common cause of leaf roll is water logging.

Please let us know.

Betsy

Betsy - The containers have Al's mix which is
5 parts pine bark fines
1 part sphagnum peat
1-2 parts perlite
plus lime and fertilizer. Highly recommended over on the container growing forum. Just about everything I have growing in containers uses this. As far as I can tell it drains quickly and should not water log. Other veggies also in 10 gal. buckets (drainage holes drilled into the bottom) with the same mix seem to do fine. I pulled the one plant onto the grass to seperate it from the other toms as a precaution. Usually it sits on a sort of rubber stepping stone thing which allows the excess water to drain out. I suppose the curling could be from drying out - they do get some wind occasionally. What concerns me more is the white specks on the leaves. There has also been some drying/browning of the margins which I attributed to older leaves and normal.. have been pruning them off as they occur. The plant most affected has one branch that bent from it's own weight and/or high winds. All the plants seem to be tilting in the same direction, so I think wind a factor. Hoping it's not a virus or wilt and that I will still get some fruits from these plants before frost...
Thanks,
Laura

OK, if water is not the cause of the leaf rolling, then it may be stress due to what ever is causing the leaf spots. You may want to do as Bobb did and look at the leaves with a strong magnifier. You may have a spider mite or some other tiny insect problem.

Betsy

Here is a link that might be useful: Google images for spider mites