I bought this tomato plant from a garden centre, I have no clue what variety it is.
All advice I get (the garden centre, my father, websites) say tomatoes need masses of sunlight, and should go outside in direct sunlight.
The daily temperature is currently around 35c and it looks like the plant is really struggling. It’s got little flowers now, but the leaves are curling and wilted, even burnt looking at the edges. I’m giving it water round its roots every day.
Is it too hot for my little plant, and what can I do if so?
Is your plant in a pot, or in the ground? If it’s in a pot don’t keep a saucer underneath, that standing water may be your problem. If in the ground, water DEEPLY, but less often. Curling leaves may be signs of a disease, or overwatering, or heat stress. If the flowers fall off before setting fruit, it’s too hot for the plant. Give it a bit of shade if you can. Chances are the variety is OK for your locality. 6-8 hours of sunlight is sufficient. Pollinators are not necessary to get a crop. Good luck.
Too much water kills more plants than any other gardening mistake. Make sure you are not overwatering because the roots will rot away.
My neighbor used to have luscious tomato plans yielding huge tomatoes but when i tried to do the same thing I failed miserably. You need to have the right combination of soil, sun, water and green thumb. I buy my tomatoes at the store.
Thanks for all the advice. It seems I may be murdering it with water.
I have now taken it out of its saucer of water (it is in a pot, and I plan to get a larger pot or a growbag) and it is now inside my living room, next to the window in full sunlight, but much less hot.
You may also have verticillium wilt, which will kill off leaves, but leave things like fruit alone. Are the leaves turning yellow at their margins first, progressing inward, and then drying up and turning brown? Also, did it start with the lowest leaves and progress up and outwards? The inside tissues may be discolored. If so, that may be it.
If it is verticillium, then there’s no cure for it. You can minimize it by giving the plant infrequent but deep watering. Soil can be fumigated for the fungus by calling a specialist who uses either chloropicrin (tear gas) or methyl-bromide.
If not you may be rotting out the roots. Tomatoes need a well drained soil, and actually the best tasting ones have deep but infrequent watering. They’ll grow quite well in sand also (i’ve grown them in the sand we have here and they tasted fine, a bit smaller than typical but still good).
But tomatoes are highly succeptible to verticillium, as are potatoes, cotton, strawberries, and many melons.
Well, the most you can do is to not plant anything succeptible there, or, hire a fumigator to come in for it.
If you still want to grow tomatoes, try growing them in pots, but use potting soil and by all means do not use any soil from your garden. If you used any garden tools on the tomatoes, sterilize them (a bleach solution should do well, soak over night).
Tomatoes are nice in that they do well in containers. I’ve seen people growing them in bags of potting soil with a hole cut in one side and holes punched on the other to allow water to escape.
Yup, it sure is. I’ve never tried to grow tomatoes in the Arabian desert, but I’ve grown plenty of them in Illinois and yeah, a consistent temperature of 35 C, being 96 F, is just too hot for tomatoes, plus the sun is too bright. That direction for “full sun” means “full sun in a temperate climate”, not “full sun in the desert”. Your plant was wilting because its water uptake through the roots just couldn’t keep up with the water loss from the leaves due to the heat.
