I think you may be in luck.

When you keep a plant in a small pot, it accelerates the life cycle of the plant. Unfortunately, this means it will die sooner and not produce much fruit. The decline of the lower leaves is a symptom of a plant being "root bound". The fact that your blossoms are dying means the plant can no longer support new fruit development so the tomatoes you have on that vine are all you're going to get - unless you take action.

As feldon mentioned earlier, you need to trim off the blossoms, the fruit, and the lower branches and plant it in a larger pot until you're ready to put them in their final destination. Trimming the blossoms puts the plant back in the "grow roots" stage of development.

By the way, I have grown Early Girl in a 10 gallon pot and it does very well.

Early Girl is a hardy variety and thus can withstand a lot of abuse.

Good Luck!

Chris

Thanks Chris and Feldon,
that's very interesting.We grew tomatoes last year for the first time in many years. They were Early Girls too.We picked tomatoes in June, (almost unheard of in Colorado) The plants never got very large but we had tons of tomatoes so maybe the roots didn't develop much then either.

The thing we were concerned about was putting them into too much shock by transplanting twice. Our growing season is so short here and it's another 2 weeks before we can safely put them out unless we can get them into Walls o' Water in this next week. We will trim back and see how it goes.
Thanks a lot.

Ellie

With now three threads going I must admit it's getting confusing. ( smile)

The above picture strongly suggests Septoria Leaf Spot infection.

Yet on perhaps the first picture it seemed as tho the plant in the foreground was the only one affected b'c the one I saw in the background was fine, with no problems.

Is this plant in any way different in origin from the other plants that look OK/ I ask b'c it doesn't make sense to see foliage diseases on plants that are inside unless you bought plants and one or more was diseased when you bought them.

Potting up and other measures aren't going help if you have Septoria as a problem, and yes, it can affect blossoms. And yes, I'd advise spraying with Ortho Garden Disease Control, which is Daconil, which is an excellent anti-fungal.

I tend to tyhink that more than one thing is going on here, and it's a combo of Septoria and perhaps too wet, at eklast for the plant you keep showing.

Carolyn, who formerly lived in Denver for years where she grew tomatoes. Where abouts in CO are you? Just curious.

Hello Carolyn,
When we bought the four plants all of them were green, full of flowers and even had little tomatoes.
It's just in the last week or so that we noticed the buds drying up and some of the leaves looking funny.
All four had this situation.

Since they are not at my house, I don't see them daily but yesterday, I took scissors, trimmed off all the flowers and some of the leaves in question. The plants are really loaded with leaves,and so far, the remainder are a nice healthy looking green.
Guess we will see if they stay that way.
I'll have to look at some pictures of Septoria Leaf Spot since I'm not familiar with that.
We really hesitate to spray anything, especially, if we're not sure of the problem but I know that is risky and the plants might die off.
We should know shortly if any more leaves will turn yellowish. then we'll know if whatever the problem is, it's ongoing.

I live in Louisville and that is about 25 northwest of Denver (east of Boulder).
Thanks,
Ellie

I have some serious concerns about my tomato plants:
1. My Cherokee Purple plants (2): are about 5 ft tall, with one 2"-diameter tomato growing but all other flowers seem to bloom and then dry up and die with no fruit developing in sight.
2. My 2 cherry husky tomatoes: (2) are about 3-feet tall with a cluster of 4 healthy looking tomatoes on them but the plants don't seem to grow taller nor grow new flowers

3. My pear tomato plant: about 3 feet tall with two dried up looking flowers

--All my tomatoes are planted in a vegetable bed that they share with peppers, cucumber near them.
--I fertilize every 10 days or so using the Miracle Gro organic fertilizer
--I mixed the soil with egg shells for the extra calcium
--We're in Atlanta, Ga, so we do have the heat and the afternoon showers (I'm seeing tiny mushrooms growing in my veg. bed that I keep picking off)
--My house is one side of the veg. bed and birch trees on the other.. I do get sun but it is not the kind that will give anyone a sun stroke.. Do I need to transplant my tomatoes in pots where I can move them to the front yard for direct full sun?

Hi,
My posting about the tomatoes was 3 years ago.
Here is a response I received among several.
I don't know if this also pertains to tomatoes planted in the ground but I've been told it's better to have plants that have no tomatoes yet.
I don't know anything about the types of tomatoes you have.
Mine this year, are heirloom and hybrid types. So far, so good despite torrential rains we've had for 10 days.
Tomatoes definitely need lots of sun and warm nights.
You could also search the Internet and see what comes up about wilting flowers.
*************************
When you keep a plant in a small pot, it accelerates the life cycle of the plant. Unfortunately, this means it will die sooner and not produce much fruit. The decline of the lower leaves is a symptom of a plant being "root bound". The fact that your blossoms are dying means the plant can no longer support new fruit development so the tomatoes you have on that vine are all you're going to get - unless you take action.

As feldon mentioned earlier, you need to trim off the blossoms, the fruit, and the lower branches and plant it in a larger pot until you're ready to put them in their final destination. Trimming the blossoms puts the plant back in the "grow roots" stage of development.