I'm in Staffordshire! The tomatoes are all in large pots. The lower leaves are all absolutely fine, it's only the upper leaves, but it's not like the usual leaf curl due to heat, they are properly distorted and wizend.....it's like the edges of the leaf are like when you've left a lettuce out in the kitchen for a few days - all limp and floppy!
Also...forgot to say, where you would normally pinch out the side shoots, I've left them on at the top, just to see how they grow, and they look like normal healthy shoots...
They'll be struggling to take up enough water to reach the farthest ends of the stems in pots. It's not uncommon, especially at the size they are, and coupled with not enough ventilation/protection in the heat. Tomatoes don't do so well once temps get above high twenties. Our temps here have been like that recently - mid to high twenties, and inside a greenhouse of any kind, that's magnified by a huge amount, so the ventilation and shading needs to be there early in the day
If it was the compost, the lower leaves wouldn't be happy, and the plants wouldn't have got to that size by now if the compost was infected in any way.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
My tomatoes are also showing signs of heat stress with temps in the upper 30's in the greenhouse over the last couple of weeks. The tops of the plants are twirling around and the leaves growing weirdly, but they'll sort themselves out now it's a bit cooler. I don't have the problem with wilting leaves so likely as @Fairygirl has said above.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
As you’ve explained so clearly by likening them to those lettuce leaves on your worktop, the tomatoes are suffering because of the heat … as @Fairygirl explained they can’t pump enough water up to the top to keep up with the amount lost by transpiration in the heat.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Just a thought too @Heather120 - if you're always going to be growing inside and in pots, it might be worth using a good, hefty, soil based compost or even just soil from your garden if you have any available. Obviously- that's no use this year, but it might be better in future, as that would help retain moisture better in long hot spells
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
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Our temps here have been like that recently - mid to high twenties, and inside a greenhouse of any kind, that's magnified by a huge amount, so the ventilation and shading needs to be there early in the day
If it was the compost, the lower leaves wouldn't be happy, and the plants wouldn't have got to that size by now if the compost was infected in any way.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I don't have the problem with wilting leaves so likely as @Fairygirl has said above.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Obviously- that's no use this year, but it might be better in future, as that would help retain moisture better in long hot spells
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...