Yellowing leaves at the bottom going up is a classic symptom of nitrogen deficiency. There's other stuff it could be, but that's a pretty common cause of the symptom. Nitrogen is used heavily during vegetative growth, and the plant can relocate nitrogen within itself. This means that if there isn't enough nitrogen to go around the plant will move it from the older leaves to the newer ones to allow for continued growth (which turns the older leaves yellow). I'd recommend feeding them a bit more - but probably only those plants that are showing signs of being hungry. Tomatoes can be hearty eaters, but if you give them too much nitrogen you can make them want to grow huge but not give you much fruit.

Kristy, I knew when I told you that you needed bigger cages that all we had to do was wait, and you'd see why I said that. It always amazes me how gigantic tomato plants get each year and they do it in only a few short months. Without knowing if the tomatoes are 100% green when picked or if they had reached the breaker stage, it is hard to know how to answer this question, but I'll try. Research has shown that you can pick green tomatoes when they are at the breaker stage and you can ripen them indoors and they'll taste just as good (or, at least, almost as good) as those that are vine-ripened. The breaker stage is that stage at which they are just starting to have the slightest hint of a non-green color, often it is sort of pinkish-white or a yellowish-white, but it depends on the variety. If you pick them while they are too green and have not yet reached the breaker stage, they won't ripen naturally. If you pick them while they are too green and are not going to turn ripe naturally no matter what, sometimes you might be able to 'force' them into ripening by putting an apple into the brown bag with them. The apple gives off ethylene gas that speeds up their ripening. So, I think if you pick them once they are at the breaker stage, you can ripen them inside without a huge difference in their flavor. I'd rather let them vine-ripen because I think it gives them a fuller, richer flavor, but they have a perfectly acceptable flavor when picked at the breaker stage. Personally, I just prefer better than "acceptable" flavor....I want outstanding to excellent flavor and you don't always get that with tomatoes ripened indoors after being picked at the breaker stage. It takes experience in watching tomatoes change color to learn what the breaker stage is. So, as a new gardener, one thing you have to be careful about is that you're picking them at the breaker stage and not picking them too soon. For what it is worth, for everyone suffering the endless days of waiting for some greenies to turn to their ripe color, the darn things WILL ripen more quickly inside than they do outside on our 90-100+ days. But, it only works if don't pick them until they've reached the breaker stage. Please note that I could say "turn red", but I just use the words "turn to their ripe color" because a lot of us grow tomatoes that are not red when ripe, but that are other colors including black, pink, yellow, orange, white, purple or bi-colored or tri-colored. There are even some that are green-when-ripe that more or less stay green or turn a yellowish-green or an amber shade with green at the end or in streaks. So, Kristy, if your tomatoes had reached the breaker stage, what you did was not a mistake. If they are not yet at the breaker stage, you might be able to force them to ripen using the apple-in-a-bag trick. If they were picked pre-breaker stage and won't ripen, you can make fried green tomatoes, fried green tomato sandhwhiches or chow-chow (green tomato relish) from them. With some tomato varieties, I think it doesn't much matter if you pick them at the breaker stage, and with other varieties I feel like I definitely can tell the difference in the ones I leave on the vine to ripen. In the overall scheme of things, I might give most breaker-picked tomatoes a "B" on an A=F scale and most vine-ripened ones an "A" or "A+". Since everyone's tastebuds vary, you'll just have to try it different ways and see what works for you and see if you like them better when left on the vine to ripen or when picked at the breaker stage. Sometimes, Kristy, (and I am not above doing this myself) it can be to your advantage to pick the green-breaker ones just before a summer 'cold front' rolls in or during a cool spell. That way, you're removing a portion of the fruit load which encourages the plants, in concert with cooler temperatures, to form more fruit. This is an area in which the whole commercial tomato industry has gotten it wrong for so many years. They pick their tomatoes often before they are at the breaker stage, and they do this because really green tomatoes have a long shipping and shelf life. Then the tomatoes are exposed to certain chemicals that turn them red. However, even though the tomatoes are the correct color, they aren't ripe. So when you eat a red grocery store tomato that has poor flavor, it is because it was artificially reddened, but NOT ripened. Because the tomatoes were picked before the breaker stage, they don't have the full, rich flavor and texture of ripe tomatoes. That's why most grocery store tomatoes taste so bad and have poor texture. I won't even buy a grocery store tomato. I'd rather not have a tomato than to have a bad one. If the commercial growers/shippers, etc., could wait a few more days and pick at the breaker stage instead of when tomatoes are almost to the breaker stage, more of America would have a chance to see what a tomato ought to taste like, but it is unlikely the happen. Dawn

In mid-july, I looked at my row of AGGold - beautiful plants 4 foot high, I couldn't find a fruit. In late august, they started to show up, and now they're covered. I've concluded that to really appreciate the wonderful variety of flavor, tomatoes has to ripen within certain temperature parameters - below 95 day time and above 55 at night. Here, that means 3 weeks in July. So to do this, I have to have flowers on the plants when I set them out in June. Anyway... Thessaloniki came through once again with lots of perfectly shaped, tasty tomatoes. Cour de Boef - Some viral disease (I think) with scrawny plants, pulled the worst looking, the rest produced a good crop of decent tomatoes. This one, I may pop for new seed because thats 3 years in a row that they haven't looked good. The fruit looks suspiciously like German Red Strawberry. Vorlon - stabilized cross between Cherokee Purple and Prudens Purple - I grow this for the market, and this was my first to ripen. It's a beautiful fruit and has less distorted fruit than the other dark tomatoes I've tried. Great harvest. Pink Climber - spotted fungus leaf disease and never really took off. Off the Vine Brandywine. This is one tomato that I continue to grow because, if the weather is auspicious and the 'mater Gods are smiling, it is the best tomato I've ever tasted. But most years, including this one, it's just another tomato. Had to pull most the plants because of July leaf wilt crud. Rainy's Maltese - huge plants, good fruit, early producer, and I'll grow it again. Sun Gold - I was smart and only put in two plants, which are now monsters. Pick a lunch sack of tomatoes every day if I wanted to. Oh, and before I forget, there was some discussion here some time back on lack of Phosphorous being an issue with leaf turn, red veined leaves. So I filled a 3 gallon sprayer and filled it with high P soluble fertilizer (bloom booster) and gave everything a spray. It seemed* to work, the plants looked far better, the leaves straightened out. *note scientific lingo.

In my hot "mountain" (hill) neighborhood nearly everyone has good luck with Black Krim, Mortgage Lifter, Sungold and Sweet 100. I actually leave my plants in over the winter -- my best tomatoes here are from January-April. Then I plant the new ones in Feb or March for the following year while I harvest from last year's plants. That said, I'd like to have summer tomatoes... so... I bought a couple dozen of the heirloom tomatoes today at Green Arrow (L.A.) that laurel of http://www.heirloomtomatoplants.com/ said were tolerant at 95 degrees, or above. I had to go through and look for the little multiple sunshine icons on her site -- it's remarkable that she doesn't have a heat-tolerant page since she sorts them by every other characteristic. Here are some, from her site: "Does well in hight Altitude" - Azoychka, black cherry, black plum, carmello, fireworks, indigo blue berries, jutland, lime green salad, northern lights, sunset's red horizon, Santiago, sweet baby girl Sets fruit above 95, maybe to 98 - 1984, black-plum, cherokee-purple, cuostrolee, Florida91, Jutland, purple-haze-homegrown, Santiago, Sungold, Super-Souix, Sweet-baby-girl. Others. Sets fruit to 95: berkely tie dye, Black-Krim, black-plum, black-tazmanian, cherokee-chocolate, cherokee-purple, chocolate-amazon, chocolate-stripes, indigo blue berries, japanese-chocolate-truffle, southern-nights, mortgage-lifter. There are others if you look at her site, but I was looking for blacks and purples... I'm looking around for some of the specific "heat set" tomatoes thatwere developed specifically so they don't drop their blossoms above 95 -- so far this year I found "Hawaiian Tropic" at Armstrong. I'd REALLY like to find a Florida91 or a Santiago. I'm not sure how "high altitude" affects tomatoes, but I am on an Los Angeles "hilltop."