I believe you are right and after I wrote I moved them on the same deck but to a place where they get more shade. We are in a heat spell right now, When the sun finally hit them in the afternoon I took an umbrella out to shade them. I would like to save them. While you are giving advice :) is there a way to eliminate the black spot fungus from our soil? Hubby is pulling leaves and even some branches on the tomatoes. It’s not nearly as bad as one year many years ago that almost all the foliage got it. We still good tomatoes. I am just wondering if we can get rid of it for good. I’ve seen that there are fungicides out there for the plants but I am concerned about the soil.
The only way to help your soil with fungal issues is to leave the area empty, cover it with black plastic and let it ‘cook’ for a season or two.
HOWEVER - you’re going to kill all of the beneficial ‘stuff’ in your soil by doing that, too - and that’s hard to get back - though it will come after a few seasons, but then you’ll be back to fungal issues again. You can’t win, LOL!
I would stick with a thick layer of mulch, making sure the beds aren’t too sloppy-wet, pruning your tomatoes up from the bottom even BEFORE you see disease issues, water plants at the base (no over-head sprinklers) and use a copper spray (it’s organic - we all have copper in us - follow application directions on the bottle) throughout the season.
Now that my tomatoes have set fruit, I will be giving the bottom 1/3 of the plants a spray with copper. We’re having a relatively dry season, so my tomato plants look fantastic. However, if we suddenly have a wet remainder of the season, all bets are off. :(