Thanks for your warm welcome and great responses..... I'm guessing the curling leaves might be due to light, because we haven't had a lot of sun here this winter. I fertilize quite reguraly so I don't think it is that. The ones that are curling up are starters from other plants that aren't "curlers". :o) I'll be sure to check out that website.. I can take the yellow leaves off but they aren't old plants? Some of them are just starters....should I do that if they are that young? It's weird too, it's all these plants in one area of my shelves that I have them on. Thanks for your help. I don't own a digital camera, but my DD does so maybe she'll let me borrow it to post some of the plants I have questions about. I am looking forward to "digging" around here and getting some useful information. Mrsfood

Hi Los Lunas Farms, Thanks for the reply. I can't send a photo for now. The tree is in it's 2nd season. It's a potted Black fig and the tree is doing well in terms of new growth. I fertilized it with Miracle Gro in early May after the plant had been taken out of garage where it spent the winter. From the top of the soil in the pot the tree stands 4 ft. tall. It gets full sun all day and I water it and the outside of the pot every morning. I have a nylon mesh sun barrier to prevent the pot from getting to hot during the day. This really helps the plant against heat stress. But on each new sprouting leaf something is eating the edges causing the leaf to 'bleed' and then curl and turn ash gray. I don't see any bugs of any kind. The leaf continues to grow but is only about half of what it should be. This all happening within the last week and half, so I'll have to wait and see how it plays out. We had real hot humid weather all of a sudden here and maybe that had something to do with it? There are also fully developed leaves that have been eaten through by some bug, beetle or otherwise, but the leaves are not dying just getting brown around the edges of where the bug has chewed through the leaf. Is there any type of a recommended insecticide that isn't damaging to the plant, fruit and us humans that might ward off most bugs in general? Like a one size fits all type of solution? Someone suggested I use 1 tsp. of dish detergent or tide in 1 gallon of water and spray it on the tree. I don't know if that is the wrong thing to do or not. Would you have to rinse the tree off or throw it in the dryer! Any suggestions much appreciated! I'll try to get a pics and post them.

If you have a place on the web (like Flickr) where you can put your photos, you can upload them there, then use the little field down below the box where you type your post (it says "Optional Link URL") to put in the URL for the photo. If you have more than one, you can follow the directions from one of the Gardenweb FAQs. If you can resize it before posting the link, take it down to 400x600 or smaller, so it doesn't overwhelm people on dial-up. There's a Tomato Pests and Diseases forum full of people who try to solve problems like this, if you want to try posting there... if you can get pictures up, that could make a big difference in figuring out what's wrong. Best of luck, and congratulations :) --Alison

Agree that it is herbicide damage but that is some poor looking soil too and why is there no mulching around the plants? Surely by now your soil has warmed enough to mulch. maybe the city was spraying the grass? Call the city. If so then insist on a warning next time so the plants can be covered. None of my other plants are affected (cucumbers, broccoli, etc). Tomato plants are 10x more susceptible than other vegetables. Other than that both neighbours have tall wood fences so I would imagine that would stop any kind of spray from traveling? Not at all. The many other discussions here about herbicide drift problems talk about drift patterns and the long distances it travels if you want to read through them. So ask the neighbors and insist on a warning next time so you can cover your plants. if you mixed one part vinegar and 3 parts water with dish soap and sprayed it on your plant it would get rid of them. That recipe is one of the standard weed killer recipes - 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water with 1 T dish soap - not a pesticide. The pesticide recipe is 1 T dish soap in 1 gallon of water (no vinegar) although it isn't usually listed as effective for caterpillars. One needs to evaluate the sources of such info carefully before using and to test on one plant before applying randomly. Is it possible that is what did the damage? Unlikely as the yellowing pattern of the leaves in pic 2 is classic Glyphosate damage. What can you do? Keep them well watered, mulch them. Trim off the worst of the damage, do NOT feed them until you see new growth, and then hope for the best. Sometimes they grow out of it. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: 2-4D weed killer damage on tomato plant pics