I think they need some fertilizer. Doesn't look like a disease to me.

Linda

Agreed. Tomatoes need to be fertilized regularly, especially in containers. Those plants look really hungry.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have been fertilizing them about once a month, but its been really hot here during the past week, so maybe that drained them pretty quick.

I just gave them some more fertilizer and epsom salts and hopefully they recover!

Thanks!

I fertilize my container tomatoes at least once a week with liquid fertilizer. If it's been dry and I have to water them often, I just water with fertilizer at 1/4 the recommended dilution every time. A month is a long time to go between fertilizings for a fruiting plant unless you're using granular fertilizer, which doesn't work all that well in container plants.

Lay off the epsom salt. It's a "fertilizer" only if your soil is known to be Mg-poor. If it isn't, and most soils aren't, it can burn the plant. Many people consider epsom salt to be some sort of magic sauce for plants. It is not.

Agreed. In addition, an imbalance with too much Mg relative to Ca can cause BER. Container tomatoes are already very susceptible to BER. I just use a tomato fertilizer, which usually has the minerals in the right balance.

That's a good point that I never thought about. But it's a matter of putting 2 and 2 together. BER is caused by an inability of the plant to move calcium around in it's tissues (it used to be ascribed to a calcium deficiency but it is not necessarily so), and magnesium is chemically very similar to calcium. So excess magnesium will interfere with calcium usage and uptake in plants.

There has been some VERY odd advice running around that epsom salts *help* with BER. That's a complete myth.

Thanks for all the helpful advice. This is only my 2nd year growing tomatoes, so I don't pretend to be an expert.

By the amount of fruits that I seed on those plants, it seems to me that they are just over burdened by the crop and have aged naturally. How much more can one expect from a tomato plant , in a container ?

Sey

I would add that nutritional problems are not always because you haven't added enough nutrients, because pH, over or under watering can make it hard for the plant to take them up. For me, under and overwatering is hard to avoid in a container, and my first thought was overwatering.

Also, it can be more that just one thing.

While it's very hard to get tomato plants to be as big and as productive in containers as in the ground, I've never had them look that sickly. You guys don't think that not fertilizing for a whole month when the plant is in heavy fruit-bearing mode is likely to be the problem? Unless maybe the plant is a determinate? I don't grow a lot of determinates, so I haven't seen how they behave at the end of their fruit-bearing.

I do Gorbelly. I've been there and done that! When I did add some Miracle Grow, it didn't seem to help, and I was advised to use Epsom Salts because "there is something missing from MG".

Linda

The main reason I hadn't fertilized in a month is because I could still see remnants of the granular fertilizer I used on top of the soil. I'm using Dr. Earth's tomato and vegetable granular fertilizer. Most of my tomatoes are in a raised garden bed. The potted tomatoes you see in the pictures are in fairly big pots - about 1/3 the size of a wine barrel.

BTW Nanelle, thanks for posting links to the pics.

Maybe it is not a nutrient problem. I think it is uneven moisture in the medium. Try when you water to water until it comes out of the drain holes. Stop, then wait about a half hour, and then give a slow gentle watering. You would be amazed at what a difference it can make.