Posted on 08/17/2013 7:00:14 AM PDT by US Navy Vet
My tomatoes are just producing ALOT of leaves and LITTLE TINY Yellow flowers but NO "fruit" yet. Is this normal? All you FreeRepublic Gardeners have any answers for me? I Live in W/ Iowa(Council Bluffs).
It’s tomatoes and potatoes.
Agreed. If you are using Sevin, stop. The only bug killer I use is spinosad, and I only use it on my squash.
“How long have they been in?”, since Late May.
That’s for sure. We have 15 tomato plants and only two reddish tomatoes. The variety in one garden has lots of leaves, not as many tomatoes, but better now. Not sure why. Romas have lots of tomatoes, only one pink one. Staking might help.
Failure to set fruit or poor fruit set
1. Night temperatures above 70 degrees or below 55 degrees.
2. Day temperatures above 90 degrees combined with low humidity and/or drought. Hot drying winds can add to the problem.
3. Dry soil can cause blossoms to dry up and drop.
4. Too much nitrogen fertilizer produces leafy growth at the expense of flowers and fruits.
5. Cold soils at planting time can stunt growth and delay or eliminate flowering.
6. Insufficient light. Tomatoes require at least 6 hours of direct sunlight per day.
7. Viral diseases, such as, curly top, mosaic viruses, etc. can affect flowering and fruit set.
8. Lack of air circulation can inhibit the movement of pollen to the flower pistils.
Tomatoes are self pollinators, they don’t need bees or other insects for pollination. As others have said high temps in the 90’s inhibits this self pollination. Usually the flowers are vibrated by a breeze which induces pollination. You can help the process by thumping the stems that the flowers are on to get them to vibrate. I do a walk through my garden every morning and thump each stem the flowers are on, on each and every tomato plant. Takes a little time but i also get to inspect for bad insects and other problems.
Hope this helps but you can’t control the temps.
Here in Virginia, we had an unusually late frost and it damaged fruit trees and veggies. Not enough to kill but many trees are not bearing fruit this year and good gardeners are complaining of 6ft tall tomato plants with no fruit or green ones that won’t ripen. My greenhouse saved me and covering up what I could on the frosty nights..
See post 26 above
Looks like a little August weather is coming next week and that should help with the 60+ degree nights.
I’m getting ripe ones as long as I pick them at the first signs of yellow. What I found last fall was that picking all of them and putting them in a dark box ripened about 90% of them.
I love pot-growing tomatoes- I used an office size garbage can from the dollar store and had excellent results
22 inches tall and about 14 wide it was better than a potting container which were too short and squat
you have to pinch off some suckers and let it devote energy to the fruit
the suckers are the little branches that sprout between a main branch and a side branch - pull all of those
When I try that they usually just rot. :(
Great response. I was averaging about 150-200#s per week. Once night temps fought to reach 50F, I had lots of blossom drop. They’ll re group - I’ll just can carrots and potatoes in the mean time :-)
This is NOT an English OR Spelling Thread, it is an information thread SO get lost.
Thanks! I’ll try that next time....on the trash cans...did you punch holes in them?
Here is how to pinch off the suckers.
I don't know how or why, but I'm sure that is racist and homophobic.
Pruning tomato plants.
I don’t know how or why, but I’m sure that is racist and homophobic.
Plant a few patches of Oregano. When it blooms the bees will come.
get some Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) work a table spoon around each plant .it is the same as blossom set in the spray can only cheaper
Everyone I know has had problems with tomatoes this year.
You should still have time, not sure when your average first frost is.
Like I said above, when the fruit starts setting you might want to pinch off flower clusters so the developing fruit gets the plant energy.
Also, I’m not sure what your soil conditions are there, but here in the PNW, it’s very acidic and low in calcium. So I add a good amount of lime to my maters. The growing fruit needs alot of calcium, and you will get blossom end rot if they can’t get it fast enough.
As long as you don’t have any discoloration of the vines or obvious signs of fungal problems on the leaves, you should be ok.
Last year I lost almost my entire crop to late blight. Didn’t affect my potatoes at all. Odd, because late blight is what caused the Irish potato famine.
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