Cherry and beefsteak tomatoes. Noticed on the beefsteak first. It started at the top of the plant and worked its way down. Today I went out to do my usual watering and checking on everything and noticed that my cherry tomatoes were showing the same type of wilting. Tomatoes are growing relatively well and the leaves are not discolored, just wilted. Raised bed, Zone 8a. What’s going on with my tomatoes?
Update: Based on everyone’s comments (thank you so much!). I’ve trimmed the plants considerably to open them up and improve airflow, I’ll be getting straw for the soil and installing a shade cloth and hopefully that does the trick.
Couple questions to help narrow it down:
How's the heat been lately? How many hours of sun are they getting? How and how often do you water? Hit it with fertilizer recently? Seen any globs of little bugs under the leaves (probably little green guys or little fuzzy white guys)?
For the last few days, 100 degrees. Full sun (8am - 6pm). As they were getting established (it’s a new raised bed), I watered daily. Lately I’ve been trying to water every other day depending on how the soil on top looks. I added some compost about a month or so ago. As far as the little bugs, I don’t think I have seen them but I also haven’t been looking.
How do they look a few hours after the sun goes down? If it's just heat stress, the leaves will uncurl once it cools off.
Often, curling up is heat stress, curling down is too much water. That is not a hard and fast rule though, a bunch of other things can cause those conditions.
I will check this tonight but I believe they remain the same even after the sun has gone down.