I need more info but I don't know what to ask. (smile) Other than brown deposits from using well water I don['t, off hand know of anything that causes such cristy spots. Could you describe in much more detail what these spots look like, as to size, shape, any internal structure to them, etc.? And any yellow halo around them on the leaf. What color is the leaf? And it's only some but not all of your tomatoes that have this? That's important b'c it rules out lots of environmental things assuming all your plants are being treated the same. Why do you call it crusty? Can you scrape it off with your fingernail? When folks say spots on the foliage I naturally think of folaige diseases, but I don't know of any that have brown crusty spots. Carolyn

Hi tworivers - would it be possible to post a picture of them? It would help a lot. Are these true leaves or just the cotyledons - the seed leaves - that are damaged? It is possible to scorch very young seedling leaves if they are too close to the light - happens to most of us now and then - but the plants will usually recover. And it's especially true if you mist the plants or if it is too hot in your growing area. Is it enclosed so that the heat is trapped? Got a thermometer near the plants? A small fan to lightly move the air will help. Only other thing I can suggest without see it is to lightly touch it and see if it will rub or brush off on your finger - that would tell us that it is some sort of mold or fungus. Keep us posted on what you find or if you can post a picture. Good luck. Dave

I'm using a regular "universal" soil (it's really poorly described on the declaration), nothing added. Seemed to work last year well so I didn't think any chance is necessary this year either. No drain holes as I tried to water just enough to wet the soil and not drown it. This might be a problem if I wasn't careful enough and did over water some of them. As stated above, I try to wet the soil and then re-water when it gets almost completely dry.

I would guess most of those whitish, papery spots are sunburn. The good news is: since your message was a week ago, by this point, the damage is done, and if your plants have survived, you probably don't need to do anything. The new foliage will be adapted to unprotected exposure to sun and be fine. When it grows in enough so that you think the plant can photosynthesize OK with just the new, undamaged foliage, go ahead and prune off the old, damaged leaves. In future (or if you moved your plants back inside after your original post), you need to do what's called "hardening off" when you first bring plants that have been grown indoors to the outdoors. This means very gradually exposing tender, indoor-grown plants to outdoor stresses. UV radiation, especially, will damage plants when first brought outside if care is not taken. Wind is also an issue if combined with UV or with dry air, especially cool, dry air. General advice on hardening off is to leave plants in full shade for a day when you first put them out, and then gradually and slowly increase their exposure time to full sun for about a week or so starting with less than an hour (preferably not during the strongest sun period of the day) and increasing a bit every day. If you can't be there to move plants back and forth between sun and shade because of work or something, a good strategy is to use shade cloth (a thin fabric that is designed to give plants a small amount of shade in very strong sun areas). In the beginning, use several layers. Each day or two, remove a layer until the plants are doing well in full sun. Adjust the schedule to account for cloudy days, etc. I'm not sure what the black spots in your first photo are. I would prune off the areas with the dark spots just in case they're some kind of opportunistic disease taking advantage of the sun damage, but I suspect they're some kind of anthocyanin response to the sudden intense UV.