Why do the leaves on my tomato plants keep curling up & how do i prevent it from happening?
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Answers:
Look on the underside of your tomato leaves... not just the ones that are curled up but also the healthy ones. You will probably see many very small white or light brown bugs (tiny, the size of a flea or smaller). These are Aphids and Thrips. They are a very common tomato pest that sucks fluid from the undersides of tomato leaves causing them to curl down. All hope is not lost though, there is a simple solution that I will also provide. Mix one tablespoon of liquid dish soap (dawn or Palmolive...) with 4 cups of warm water and put in a spray bottle. Spray your plants down on the top and bottom of the leaves and directly on these insects. This will kill them and prevent them from coming back to your plants and will not hurt the tomatoes one bit. I just did this to my plants last week. I saw an instant improvement. I hope this helped!
They are either getting too much sun or not enough water!
You may also have anyone of several virus' that affect tomatoes. Some of the problems come from the soil and some from insects feeding on the plants. There is no cure for any. The soil borne can be lessened by moving the plants to different soil each year and using virus resistant varieites..all those funny letters on the tag will clue you in such as VFM.
For the insect feeding problems, they come from overwintering weeds near the garden and the insect moves from the weeds to your tomatoes. It only takes one "sip" by these insects to infect the plant.
So let's hope it is just the nature of the variety to have a somewhat curled leaf, or you were under or over watering because if it is virus, you are sunk.
Mine do this when I slack on watering, as long as I get them some before it's too late, the leaves go back to normal shortly after watering.
Maybe they need fertilizer? Or maybe they're thirsty? Hopefully it's not a virus. Just keep watering, give them a little tomato food, and hope for the best. I dunno, never had this problem with mine.
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