The next to the bottom photo of the tomato looks like late blight. Not good. It's a good idea to remove the plant and bag it for garbage. There's better info here:

https://extension.umn.edu/diseases/late-blight

The white creatures in the second photo are mealybugs.

I wonder why you put so much effort in creating such unusual conditions (containers, plastic on top of the soil) for growing your tomatoes? When grown in favourable conditions in the ground tomatoes develop strong, spread widely and deeply (several feet) root system they need to support the healthy, productive top. Why you keep them in such small, shallow containers where they will never do well? Believe me, it would take much less effort to built a healthy soil for growing healthy plants, than to struggle constantly with the never ending problems. If you are really interested in growing tomatoes please read this on the Soil and Health Library website.

"I wonder why you put so much effort in creating such unusual conditions (containers, plastic on top of the soil) for growing your tomatoes?"

@windberry zone5a BCCanada thank you so much for taking the time to respond ! I checked out your link. Very interesting. I think I've seen it or similar before. FWIW, I grow Dwarf Project Tomatoes which are crossed to grow in smaller spaces.

I have cherished pre-smart phone pictures circa 1997 on gardenweb of growing in the ground. Hard to post something lengthy now, so i will just say redwoods and a steep clay slope.

This last 10-14 days with the crazy heat, lightening strikes, unusual precipitation and unusual but brief humidity, and then the wildifre has been a calamity. I disagree that they will never do well. I know they can be better, but i won't give up because of that.

I guess i post when there's a problem and not when things are good, but all in all, a good tomato season.

Below is from about 2010. Good times! Not shown are the greedy hulking redwoods just a few feet beyond the carefully built redwood boxes. The irony!

This year.

I love this spot, but if I have to move, I believe you, and I will look forward to growing in the ground again.

It is likely early blight, not late blight. There was a gardening thread on the bay area reddit where a lot of people were complaining that all their tomatoes (and friends and neighbors tomatoes) have early blight this year for the first time. Mine do to, so you are not alone. I have no idea why everyone is having trouble this year, but I don't think it was the weird storm as I already had trouble a bit before then. I think it was the fact that up until the heat wave, we had a pretty cool summer. All my tomatoes are about a month behind normally in ripening.

The problem with early blight is that it will spread to all the plants nearby and eventually kill them all, but there are fungicides you can spray to slow down/ stop early blight. I sprayed mine with some liqucop (I have it around for my peaches anyway) 2 weeks ago and threw on some extra nitrogen and tomato tone. The bottoms of the plants that died won't come back, but I don't see the blight spreading and the plants seem to be doing better. Although the cold humid/foggy weather right now is certainly not going to help. I from the looks of it, my brandywines aren't going to peak until October this year, so it will be a struggle to keep the blight at bay.

Now if I could only find a way to deal with the rats!

Thank you @Robin Morris. I'm thinking I'm a bit more inland than you. No cold/humid/foggy here, but still technically the Bay. I do not feel alone! It is almost midnight and I expect to see a possum any minute.

It looks like everywhere, even way inland, in the bay tonight has temperatures in the 50s and humidity 85%+. Great blight weather!

But yeah, I am mid-peninsula at the edge of the fog belt. I do wonder if the blight was in the wind or something for the whole region (I think that is how it spreads) because I would think inland would be dry enough to not have issues even with the cooler summer.

I hope it is not the new normal. It was nice not worrying about fungus.

85 percent humidity in the central valley too? Wow!

Western PA is having similar weather, cool nights and very high humidity. My tomatoes are beginning to look similar to the ones in your photos.

Its saddening and i am hopeful this is not the new norm