Topic: Tomato plants, top leaves curling under

[Sigsy]

Hello again,

Thanks for the great respone to my Cucumber questions, I feel quite satisfied that I know what I'm doing with them now  ;)

I have a question about Toms though,

I have 18 plants on the go at the moment, all look very healthy, about 1 1/2' tall, dark green, stocky stems, flowers ready to open, but a strange thing happens  :-\

Sometimes the very top leaves seem to have curled under almost into a ball, (imagine your fingers being the top crown of the plant and then making a claw with your hand, they kinda look like that  :-\  if that makes any sense)

But other times they are out straight and look fine, but mostly I would say they are curled to some degree

Any ideas what is causing this?  They look healthy enough and it's only the top/new leaves that its happening to, I've been feeding with Tomorite once a week and watering every 3rd day or so unless the compost is very moist.

I'm not too concerned but It would be nice to know if this is a normal thing that happens with Toms, as I'm totally new to the game  :)

[Fork]

Dont worry,its normal.The leaves will uncurl as they get bigger.

[Sigsy]

Phew, thats a weight off  ::)

Thanks Fork  ;)

[kakoi_polloi]

I've had this problem and have been asked on a number of occasions what this is all about. I've got a picture on my blog to show what it looks like. http://www.kakoi.co.uk/kakoi_blog.asp   In most cases this is due to over feeding. If your tomato plants are quite young, perhaps flowers but no tomatoes yet, you shouldn't be feeding. Only feed once the tomatoes are well on their way.

The solution... after a bit of research I found that the professionals use a folar spray that contains Boron, but I couldn't find this anywhere locally so I took the advice of an expert at a good Garden Centre. If you remove two or three of the lower branches (below the first truss) the leaves higher up will have to uncurl to make up for the loss of foliage. I was a bit worried about doing this but speaking to other seasoned tomato growers it's not uncommon to remove large amounts of foliage as the plant matures so that the tomatoes get more sunlight. Hope this helps

[Anisemary]

This very problem was put to our local gardening expert Jo Maiden on BBC radio Leeds today, and his reply was it's nothing at all to worry about, it's usually an indication of a very healthy plant!

[Jayb]

Shame, I was interested to read your blog but didn't bother when I saw all the products you are trying to sell.

[ceres]

Shame, I was interested to read your blog but didn't bother when I saw all the products you are trying to sell.

I've removed a couple of posts and kakoi_polloi has been made aware of the forum policy on advertising.