Without knowing more it could be as simple as they needed water?

Unfortunately, some of us are unable to post pictures the easy way and Houzz is of no help, just blames ad blocker :(

I am in Ontario too and the drought has been horrendous here this year. If the weeds and everything else is wilting too, it is either because they are too dry, or because someone has tossed something on them or an animal has peed on them. I vote for them being thirsty.

Linda

I give ya all a little run down about
my family's urbarn farm. We currently reside in Ontario Canada. We do
live in the city all while raising chickens, rabbits and grow 2
large veggie gardens between 2 back yards. We started the "new" garden
this spring.Loaded it up with about 5 inches of fresh compost and rabbit
manure. Anyway we planted a large row of tomatoes,
they were looking amazing. Went away on holidays and came home to a
wilted plant turned brown. I can honestly say with all the years of
experience of growing food I have never run into this before. There was
intense heat for about 10 days straight. However I had them watered with
drip irrigarors on the same schedule they had been on all summer. I use
the rainbrd system. the rest of the 2 gardens are doing amazing. this
is just attacking the tomatoes? We feed regularly with home brewed compost tea. We grow all our food organically.
I honestly hate using the interwebs for this type of info.. Thanks for the heads up on the photobucket thing..I really don't have that much in there to hide anyway..

The weeds were walked on, and the peppers loved the heat and grew a foot in almost a week! The reason they look wilted is because they (some of them) fell over in a big rain storm. I took all the pics just after I staked them all up. Nothing is thirsty in that bed, it was watered every day. twice a day for 5 minutes a soak.
The tomato plants are a Sicilian saucer that I harvest and keep my seed from for the last 10 years now. Ill try to get some better pics today after we pull the friggin weeds. I guess this is what I get for going away with the fam for a vacation...sigh.....

If it is just the one variety that is "complaining" perhaps they need more water than the others?

I am growing Costoluto Genovese this year and the amount of BER in them is horrendous.

Linda

<Went away on holidays and came home to a
wilted plant turned brown.>

<Nothing is thirsty in that bed, it was watered every day. twice a day for 5 minutes a soak.>

Is that via soaker hoses? Can there be an obstruction?

I'm gonna say that was not sufficient water for these plants in this heat and that the addition of more water would be a simple enuff test to rule out lack of water as a problem. Try adding more water by hand away from where the plant stems enter the soil.

IF that helps even short term you should try to determine the volume of water that is being added during this 5 minute soak and the placement of this water which may not be getting to the roots.

Keep in mind that all those weeds were also using any water applied to the area. You have not mentioned how far from where the stem enters the soil this water is applied or the volume.

<the other reason is the individual that was looking after the garden
told me that they looked great at night and in the am but we're all
twisted in the day heat.> Sure sounds like a water issue there to me.

Is adding more water by hand to rule out water as a problem really that much trouble?

That ground looks very and overly wet, and clay. IMO I would definitely not add more water -- especially if it rained the last 3 days. Given the pictures, I would say overwatering if you are watering every day is likely. The poster is in Ontario not Texas. JMO.

<I'd like to add is when we water in the dry days were digging up in
various spots and getting well over 5 inches of saturation in the row.
compared to less then an inch between rows.> That makes me believe that you are indeed not applying the water where the roots can get to the water.

Keep in mind that plants feed from their root tips, so as the plant
grows I tend to move where I water. Also the weeds will not only compete
for water but the nutrients.

In the picture you posted the weeds look pretty happy.

Another
thing I don't know is how these plants were transplanted which can and
does affect their root growth. So all I have to go on is what you
mention here and the pics.

In the picture above it say the emitters you are using emit 1 gallon per hour (under ideal conditions?) and you said you water for 5 min x2 right?

I
am not gonna do the math cuz I don't know how many emitters you have or
the spacing or the water pressure or the placement =- all variables in
the amount of water applied.

If you had applied any more water we would likely have had an answer by now.

I
have posted this link many times on these forums. Scroll down to the
plant you are interested in to get an idea how the root develops.

ROOT DEVELOPMENT OF VEGETABLE CROPS

carolyn137
who I haven't seen post in sometime now was considered a tomato expert.
You may want to search for some of her posts about growing tomatoes.

<Wouldn't 3 days of rain and 70 plus mm do the same thing?> Same thing as what?

It could but that certainly depends on many things. Did it rain continuously for 3 days straight?

Or was it like the passing summer thunder storms we get that leave 1/8 to 1/4 inch? Which is not enuff during this heat and dry spell.

btw - How are your perennials doing?

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/4080807/summer-2016-us-drought-monitor?n=16

Shasta Daisies? I presume they are white?

Not my favourite because they don't bloom for very long.

Linda

Yes - those are Shasta Daisies.

'There was intense heat for about 10 days straight.'

Tomatoes don't like overly hot weather. They will be losing quite a bit of water and it seems to me that they are not getting the amount of water that they need.

The only way to know is to physically look. Well, you can water them and see what they do, but if you think that you've given them a lot and you haven't, then the only way to know THAT is to look. Seeing is believing.

Yes, Shasta Daisies.

It sounds like you are doing everything right except giving enough water. (Actually, you weren't there when the problem occurred.) Now I think you are grabbing at straws. Wanting to blame other things. Sometimes the answer is the obvious one.

I remember reading that sometimes plants will wilt in high heat irrespective of how much water is available to them, because they simply can't suck up enough water to make up for the evaporation.

And I'm looking at your spacing--how far apart are those tomatoes? I generally space and plant my tomatoes dryfarm-style, meaning that I buy tall skinny (but not rootbound) plants, strip off almost all of their foliage except for a tuft at the top, and plant them "up to their necks" as early in the spring as I think they'll survive. I usually give each one a six foot by six foot space, and I maintain absolute weed control--which I achieve with weed barrier fabric because I'm just too lazy to weed. Several of my tomatoes are growing this way with no added water at all, contentedly making tomatoes in temperatures over 100 degrees, covering the ground with sprawled foliage. (Because I also don't stake them. That part is just laziness, but it turns out that with the relatively dry surface conditions, the tomatoes don't seem to rot as they sit on the ground.)

All of that is just to explain that my thoughts tend to focus on how much space a plant has to spread its roots. I find myself wondering if perhaps a tomato needs some minimum amount of root volume to suck up enough water to cope with very high temperatures, independent of how much water is actually available.

This year, I would recommend that you water the entire area containing the tomatoes for a looooooong time, until the dirt near the tomatoes is saturated very deep to a distance of about three feet in all directions from the tomatoes--once. So that every possible place where a tomato root might be, has available water. See if they perk up. If they do, then I think that water is the issue. If they don't, then water may still be an issue, but in the sense that they didn't produce enough root volume to prepare for the current weather.

I would recommend that next year you consider a wider spacing. That doesn't necessarily produce as much of a reduction in productivity as you'd think--if the plant has extra root room, it's likely to grow bigger.

Edited to add: Saturated to 5 inches deep is really not very deep. I would want the soil to be damp "all the way down"--so that you keep digging and just don't hit a dry line.

Funny you mention the spacing...I was going t cut out the weak ones and see if the others will compensate..I think you may have just made the case for this..Also do you think growing tomatoes up on a hill is a good idea or not? Im now more convinced this is a BIG part of my issue. Also on another note we have been hammered with rain for 5 days straight now. still no change in the weak plants. I think im going to cull them tomorrow and stretch out the others

Hmm. I don't know if thinning them now will help or not. It won't hurt, but it's possible that by this time in the season, it's too late for the tomato to grow any more roots. But you would eliminate the water-grabbing of the removed tomato's roots... hmm.

when we planted them we did just as you said.I started them from seed I had collected from lats years harvest (witch by the way did fantastic) we stripped the plants down to very little at the top. we then dig a trench and lay the plants down on an angle leaving just the small bit of growth at the top above the soil.

Hmm. You say that you used seed from last year's plants. What were last year's plants? Were they open-pollinated or hybrids? Do the tomatoes that you're getting from the plants look like you expected them to look?

(If you don't know if they were open-pollinated or hybrid, you can just tell us the names.)

Ah, OK--if you've been growing them and saving the seeds for generations, they're open-pollinated. So the issue is NOT that you have some random offspring of a hybrid parent, which was what I was wondering.

It's hard to tell much from the pics but what is your opinion?

Did you think to exam the roots of the plants you removed?

If my conversion is correct 50mm = 1.96 inches

Is there a deficit chart for your area?

I sometimes wonder whether the really hot weather that we get sometimes (days of 38 degrees Celcius/100 degrees Fahrenheit) has made growing tomatoes difficult.

I remember a time when we just grew tomatoes and things went well.

So in short, I wonder if maybe we need to arrange things so that when we apply water, our soil is watered well.

It's very easy to not water enough.

When Dad and I did our experiment where I mulched early and he didn't, my tomato plants (from exactly the same batch as his) sulked. They never caught up to his. The soil was too cold. I expected them to catch up eventually and rocket ahead.

His crop of tomatoes was on flat soil. Mine were hilled up. Mine were going to outperform his NOW of course, but they didn't.

At one stage I even showed him that his plants needed water. He was wondering why they were a little limp. I coaxed him to dig and he found that the water had barely penetrated the lovely soil that we had in his back yard. (Our tomatoes grew side by side that year.)

He had quite a number of weeds among his plants. They were lush and green and enjoying life. My tomato plants were writing their wills.

I think we make too much of weeds (I mean 'we' in general). I am sure his weeds protected the soil from excessive heat (and drying winds. Though the back yard was quite protected from wind.)

Not sure what point I am making. But it's fun to grow tomatoes with your Dad. Even when they win.

LOL, all good points.

Another would be that each growing season can be different from the last.

I think most every garden has weeds. Weeds can harbor pests and steal nutrients and water from our crops. In that respect, they are a problem when they cause problems for our crops. So if/when your crop is having problems consider doing something with the weeds.

I like to grow weeds I can eat.

I also think it is important to point out that when we see rainfall numbers in the media that does NOT mean that amount fell in our garden. That amount can be more or less. In the same town the amount will vary.

I use a very unscientific way to see how much rain fell in my gardens, I use empty tuna fish can, buckets, and or bucket lids, etc. While I don't measure it - it does serve as a visual. Esp. after a downpour which seemed impressive only to find out it was .25 inch.

I also use rain water but that can be a bit deceiving as the amount of rain collected from ones roof can be overly impressive.

Just sayin.