I've got some cherry tomatoes growing in pots and almost all the plants have had a heat stroke or some heat related stress (cool temperatures delayed). Lots of flowers, all twisted but no fruits.

Three questions:

1. Is there any hope for these plants? Will the flowers ever fruit or do I cut them?

2. Can I prune and make the plant shorter to encourage newer better growth? I have them in a semi shaded balcony and can't have them grow too big because there is not much space. (The weather has finally started to cool a bit this month we are seeing highs of 84deg F to 94deg F and lows of 65deg F to 74deg F).

3. Or should I abandon them and sow new seeds?

Any help is highly appreciated, this is the first time, I've had such a problem and have no clue what to do. I think I am going to go without cherry tomatoes this year. :-(

Your "twisted" flowers look ok to me at the moment. The two leaf damage pictures look like completely different problems. Perhaps on the right is a nutrient problem and the left a low light assisted problem.

The most important picture is missing,.. that of the planter,, showing its relative size and design.

I have these growing in several pots all have twisted flowers.

One of them (the plant is almost 5 feet tall) and the container is a 3gallon self watering pot (an inverted bottle in a pot which takes in water from the bottom as and when required).

Its in a bad shape as there are some suckers not supported. I think I must prune this plant to put it in a better shape but not too sure how to go about.

In my opinion the time to prune a plant you are having difficulty with is when the suckers are small, or not at all. The plant has expended a lot of energy to create them and if they are near the flowering stage this flowering/fruit preparation is all lost. If you pinch them off when they are shorter than your thumb, you minimize the energy lost.

If you have a very healthy plant, there can be plenty of excess energy to spare and it is not so crucial as it is continually producing new foliage.

Your tall plant does not look healthy to me. You suggest heat damage. It might be ... I don't think that can be determined from the picture without knowing the history of how you cultivated that potted plant.

On the bright side of things, I don't think you should be concerned about the petals not completely opening and thrusting the anther cone and stigma forward like a shooting star. This may have to do with the heat and variety. But you have set tomatoes, so I think heat is not the principle problem. I believe you may have a fetilizer imbalance. The self watering container in the desert is very tricky business due to the high evaporation rates leaving fertilizer residue behind to concentrate like in a salt flat on land. It doesn't look to me like this is happening for all the nutrients in yours but I think some may be deficient (the "deficiency" can be caused by excesses of others which prevent the uptake of those in lower concentrations). Also, even though you are in a warm climate, and have not said anything about the plant, the plant looks like mine when they are grown in too much shade. The plant should get direct sun exposure in the morning and plenty of water. The fertilization program is most convenient with controlled release fertilizers like Osmocote. You can get more information on growing in containers in the Container forum (see link), but generally 3 gallons will not give you room for error in fertilization and watering in a 5 foot tall plant and I think this is you major concern to address.

Best gardening
PC