Kitchen Garden Forum

I am growing tomatoes in growbags in my greenhouse. Sadly, all the plants are looking sick, with leaves curling inwards. There is no sign of blight, or other pests, diseases. Looking on line, the plants have the appearance of those affected by contamination with a herbicide. There are fruits forming, but I'm wondering if these will be edible?
I'd be grateful for any advice. Thank, Lynda

If one of the grow bag ingredients is municipal recycling compost then it could contain herbicide, for example someone treated their lawn with broadleaf weedkiller and put the next couple nof mowings in their recycling bin.

However I think it is more likely to be something else which our tomatoists will be able to identify.

Are they in a smallish greenhouse without shading in the southern half of the country - could be heat stress.

Or are they Indigo Rose viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12143&hilit=tomato

It sounds to me more of a lack of water but as I am sitting discussing this with her who knows everything about everything says no she has the same problem with some bush types she says cut the bottom leaves of as soon as possible I would not worry about eating them

One or two of my cordon tomato plants outdoors are like this for no apparent reason. They have all been watered equally well and are growing in a well composted border. All the plants have been exposed to the same temperatures from seedlings, so it is a mystery to me too. I have been growing tomatoes sown from seed for over 40 years and every year I seem to get at least one plant which looks like this. My growing area is organic so no exposure to weed killers,etc.
I,m wondering if there can be such a thing as some seeds being genetically imperfect and it only starts to show later in their growing life.

Thanks to all for your responses. Its quite a mystery. Our greenhouse is a fair size, well ventilated, and we live in Scotland, so haven't had the heat wave- although it is warm for us! We usually get some leaf curl due to the temperature differential, but this is clearly different, upward curling and cupping of the leaves, upper leaves more affected, with the growing tips having a dry, frazzled look to them. They are all different kinds, well watered, and out of the 6 grow bags, all the same make, the plants in one are completely unaffected. The appearance is identical to that shown in the photos of tomatoes in the post Aminopyralid contamination in the 'Pests and diseases' forum. I've started a broad bean trial with some of the compost from the worst affected bag, and a control with garden soil - will keep you posted! Cheers, Lynda

Just watched Beechgrove and their Tomatoes looked pretty grim too - they put it down to watering but they were in grow bag compost. Unless by some weird method you have watered one bag differently I think you have proved it is bad compost. I think despite sporadic mentions of it manufacturers are still not putting batch numbers on bags, if I'm wrong you may be able to prove it even better.
Next year do what I have done since getting fed up with commercial compost. Make wooden grow bags out of treated timber, grow in bottomless rings, and use a home made compost. I use about 5 parts soil (mole hills or skimmed off the veg patch), 2 parts leaf mould (regrettably means you have to plan ahead), 1 part sharp sand. I add lime, potash and FBB (fish, blood and bone).

My Ildi tomato plants have curled leaves too, other tomato varieties look fine. Ildi taste rubbish so I won't be growing them again

That,s interesting. Two of my three Ildi tomato plants this year have shrivelled leaves. Interestingly they were from a fresh packet of seeds. My previous years' crops have all been from saved seed but they had run out so I had to buy a fresh packet. I wonder if it,s because of genetically faulty seed? Normally Ildii crops embarrassingly well and all my previous plants have been very healthy.