Can tomato plants get TOO hot?

[Laggie]

This summer has been a scorcher in Vancouver - for the first time ever, my tomatoes are looking awesome. But I'm noticing the leaves are starting to curl and seem a little bit crispy (uh oh).

They are in full sun all day long - should I move them to an area that gets some shade in the afternoon? Or did DP forget to water them? I haven't seen them dry out in a long time (months) but it might have happened, since he's been doing most of the watering lately. The plants are in black 5 gallon pots so I've been watering them every day.

I thought tomatoes loved full sun all the time... temperatures here are in the 90-95 degree range, not hot for many of you but super hot for this climate.

[librarybooks]

i'm in the pnw and it's been blazing here too, and my tomatoes are doing great. i've been careful to keep them watered, though, since they aren't exactly used to it. if it were me, i would water them deep in the evening and check them in the morning to see if they perked up. if so, they're probably just thirsty. they prefer to be watered more deeply less often, it seems.

[JessicaS]

I grew up with 110 degree not being uncommon. Tomatoes love it just water in the evening as the previous poster described. If you water during the day a lot of the water can evaporate.

[Drummer's Wife]

I think it must be the watering -- b/c we are growing cherry tomatoes in NM and they are doing fine.

[Delicateflower]

If it's too hot the fruit won't set.

[Laggie]

It's odd... because we're watering at night, the soil is always moist, but yesterday the leaves on some of them were kind of droopy. Like they're slightly wilted.

I wonder if I'm overwatering... but the pots dry out fast so I don't want to risk them getting too dry - the plants have wilted before when I forgot for a couple of days, but that was before the summer heat.

I was thinking maybe it's the black pots in the sun getting too hot? I thought about covering the pots with white plastic bags. But maybe I'm worrying for no reason - the plants look fantastic otherwise, I'm getting tons of nice red ripe tasty tomatoes.

[ashleyhaugh]

im in louisiana, and its like a million degrees here ive had fowers, but not much fruit (2 tomatoes shortly after i got the plant, and i noticed 2 more a couple of weeks ago). its been raining like crazy here for the past week or so. i hadnt been able to get in the back yard for a few days, and when i went out there this morning, i had a bunch of tomatoes

i guess they were thirsty, even though we water every day

[catballou24]

once the temps hit above 95 in the day and 75 at night the pollen dies and they usually won't set fruit. the rain probably cooled the plants down enough to set...congrats! i'm getting sporadic settings when the days go down from 105 to 95...crazy summer here with almost no rain for several weeks now and most days are usually above 100...i'm just trying to get my plants to make it to fall when i'm hoping they will start setting again...

sounds like they just need water. when in containers and dealing with hot weather, i find i have to water every night. the ones in the ground i water every other day with drip....

[MacKinnon]

We've got the opposite issue, due the weird summer weather, it's been a cold summer here in the mid-West, one of the coldest on record, with highs in the 70's. None of the mid-90's we often see. Our tomatoes, and other plants, just don't seem as big and abundant as they often do at this point. Weird weather...

[Yuba_River]

My tomatoes are often a little droopy in the middle part of the day, but perk right back up when it cools off. We have huge variations in temperature right now, like 40's-50's at night and 80's-90's during the day, so I think they just have trouble adapting. They seem fine and healthy though.