The Modern Victory Garden

The whole row of "Early Cherry" tomatoes have scary looking leaves. Would you mind taking a look - I don't know if it's just a watering issue or if I have some disease there that should be ripped out before it infects the rest of the garden. I've created a Flickr account for the garden, and the leaf pics are in the folder called "Garden Problem Photos" (but anyone is welcome to browse around to see our garden in progress!). It's here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/40082160@N04/sets/

I also had blossom end rot in just one variety, isn't that strange? About half of my crop of "Oroma" had it. But I figured that one out on my own :). You'd think if the bed were low in calcium, it would affect all three varieties in that bed, not just the one row.

I have never had anything quite like that vfd.   I have had problems where the leaves yellow and then turn brown, had blights, and had bacterials infections.   This looks like neither.  In fact, it looks like structural damage (i.e. a burn).   So I did some googling and I found this information.   The description of the problem fits your pictures perfectly.   Do any of the causes sound like something that might be (or had) happened?

 Q. What could cause the leaves of my tomatoes to turn brown along the edges?

A. Leaf-burn or scorch generally indicates root injury, quite often caused by heavy amounts of fertilizer applied too near the roots. This injury often results in browning and die back of the ends and margins of the leaves. Other possible causes are root injury caused by nematodes, insects or physical injury by cultivation. Also overwatering or underwatering along with diseases might cause leaf-tip burn.

By the way, I enjoyed looking at your other pics too!   You did a super job on creating your garden.  Very productive and look at all those ripe tomatoes!   You rock!  

Thank you so much Laura! I'd googled, too, but wasn't productive in my googling.

You found the culprit for sure - I'd fertilized before that happened. I guess that's a good thing, since at least it's not contageous! It's hard to know where to fertilize having trench planted them per your excellent suggestion. The roots must run all along the trenches by now.

And thanks for your compliments . . . we have a long way to go yet, but we keep telling ourselves how pleasant next year will be with the bulk of the construction behind us!

Mystery solved!   It is a good thing because it definitely is not contageous and there is a good probability those plants will go right on living well and produce for you.