The tomato wants to grow in the upright position as do all plants. it will always try to do this and you cant train it to grow down. Unless of course you put a giant grow light below it that was more powerful than the sun. Then it might grow down. mike

I think what I like about automated watering like drip/micro sprinklers is that I can water them at say 8:30 am every day (while I am already off to work) and let the micro sprinklers work for 15 mins (waters about 6 inches deep) every 2 days (1 day when temps are high). So no watering needed in the evening so less slugs at night and less chances of getting fungus as the leaves are dry by afternoon/evening. I use evenings to check on the plants for insects/diseases.

"A plant drinks 6-7 litters of water a day now" No, there is no way that plant needs more than 3 liters per day. If you've measured properly (and it is not draining out, I interpret my comment about overheating the soil as being the *principal* problem. Fix that! When the leaves get to that stage I pinch them off. I don't know whether the curl is from heat and dying alone, or if there is something else there, but it look not bad so far. The only reason to keep a leaf like that is if it is shading a fruit and keeping the sun off. Otherwise keeping it on the plant will only increase the chances a weakened plant will get an out of control disease, IMO, because they are are good media for breeding of pathogens. The plant has already withdrawn nutrients from it which as seysonn mentioned may not be optimally delivered. The damage doesn't look too bad (diseased) to me, could be prompted from insects and the plant naturally removing nutrients from it to give to nerw growth. Nothing wrong with pinching off leaves from the bottom as the plant gets taller and puts out more in the zones where the new fruits are developing. While the above ground plant can tolerate those high temperatures,the roots are in overdrive and very uncomfortable. This will just weaken your plant.

Dave, first I just want to say I love your posts and have learned a great deal second hand from many of your answers to questions in this forum, some of which I've put into practice. Organic toxins and the microorganisms that produce them are not at issue generally and I don't disagree with your thought there. I just make sure I eat clean and sanitary vegetables. When dealing with metals, inorganic chemical compounds and polymers and additionally some derivatives of fossil fuels that is a rather different ball of wax and are not diseases of the immune system as you are focused. Often very low concentrations of inorganic toxins can cause poisonings of various types and some accumulate. The premise that we use some inorganic salts in fertilizers automatically means anything inorganic is ok is faulty logic. Fertilizers also have grades ... for example in some applications people acidify their growing medium with sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid is actually a plant nutrient, though it is an inorganic compound. Now, let's take that a step further. Suppose I want to acidify my soil and buy some food grade sulfuric acid. There is no problem. By the same token, what would you say if I emptied my old trucks battery into the soil "in a pinch" since I had no sulfuric acid on hand? This is an extreme example but illustrates a potentially deadly cocktail of heavy metals which are the byproduct of an industrial process. You shouldn't think of plastics like glass. Plastics are more like soups that are mixed up in a factory with a recipe only the maker knows for sure. When formed into their solid shapes they can and do absorb heavy metals and smaller inorganic chemicals. Buckets that are cheap are usually made with a percent of recycled materials. Food contact grade does not permit that - all is usually virgin, pure raw material in combination with additives if necessary, that give the plastic resin workable properties. Answering a question authoritatively to prove there is something wrong with a resin is usually impossible since the manufacturer isn't going to tell you they ground up old car battery plastic cases in the molding or extrusion of the plastic. If it is not made for food applications may be perfectly acceptable. Answering it authoritatively that it is safe however is worse, because it is based on anecdotal habits. That's why I said it comes down to personal preferences. Lead wasn't removed from paint until it started peeling off and getting into babies' food. Luckily tomatoes do well on filtering lead or there would be a lot more of it in tomato lovers’ bodies and it impairs and disrupts the development and maintenance of your nervous system. That’s just lead. The problem of course with all the epidemiological long term risks is that who is going to study the breakdown effect under every possible condition of Home Depot buckets, and don't kid yourself, but HD has no idea what their buckets are made from because most are contracted out to the highest bidder who is offshore and possibly not very concerned about what recycled material he gets and who from to make the buckets. When faced with complicated problems a natural reaction is just to ignore them and hope all is fine ��" the bucket looks new and shiny to you, right? Regulatory agencies only regulate what they are programmed to regulate. If no one has looked for it, it may just add a small boost to the incidence of cancers - for example. Also if one bucket costs $2.50 with recycled content and the other costs $3.50 and is all virgin with fewer and safer additives to meet food grade, to a casual gardener $1 may be a small insurance worth the peace of mind. On the other hand if someone has 10,000 plants to sell, that's $10,000 off the bottom line and is not a viable business decision. The plant physiology and metabolism part, like gardening varies depending on what people do, and is a huge and active field in research, but plants can uptake or metabolide producing some human toxins and appear healthy. My concerns really are not much when it comes to pots from a nursery, but I feel they really should be considered when selecting materials for irrigation barrels, recirculating systems, hydroponic reservoirs, and … container gardens … and some pots ... where the potential is to bake the plastic resin in the Sun and especially when continuously recycling nutrients such as a self-watering container, that doesn’t have frequent purging of some sort. Hands on DIYers love a bargain, and that's what recycled content plastics are. But as people age and see 1/6 of their friends dying of cancer, sometimes it is easier just to spend the $1 and feel the pride that comes with a higher-spec'ed system. Like having a glass blender cup instead of some cheaper plastic one that eventually begins to degrade ;-) I know folks who buy Bonnie Plants for $6 each, only to use cheap plastic. Meanwhile I have food contact grade buckets, pure PE, I got from a company that filled them with strawberry puree for bakeries I use @ $1 each. I would grow a tomato in a $0.25 polyethylene zebra bag before I would use a home depot bucket ;-)