I am growing many types. Some only have flowers as of yet. Here are starts of fruiting:
One of the hardest to find, and I love best if the red cherries, is Sweet Baby Girl. In fact, she began to fruit this year before any of the cherry or currants!
One I was NOT planning to get was from Parkrose Hardware, when I was buying other thimhs that day they gave me a freebee. Why not? So this is Early Girl slicer,in my herb garden, and seems she is happy to be there. She is truely earlier than any of my other paste or slicing maters.
We spent a few hours yesterday putting down straw mulch around a few plants and some grass clippings in the rows. Our plants are mostly about 3ft tall, and a few are already fruiting.
Mine are coming along nicely. However, maybe someone can help. For some reason, even though I have a few healthy tomatoes coming along it seems about 75% of the flowers are just drying up and dying. Is there something I can do to help produce more fruits?
If itās been hot where youāre at, that will affect flower formation and pollination. I think when temps that are consistently above 90 degrees during the day or above 75 at night, pollination is reduced.
Ok, they should start flowering again when the temps drop, Iām sure youāre keeping them properly hydrated. I know about the heat and tomatoes, I lived in north Texas for a while, and once June started with the 90+ temps, we hardly got any tomatoes after that. Here our main issues are too much rain and deer. Canāt do much about the weather, but can protect them somewhat from those varmits.
Also, if your fert is high in N in relation to P, that might cost you flower formation as well. Lots of foliage, not so many blooms. Our 'maters were in a N rich soil last year, but a lot of them didnāt flower much. Big plants, not much fruit. Not because of the heat, but because the soil was relatively low in P. This year they are in a plot very high in P and K, and thereās lots of flowers already.
Thanks!
Iām actually pretty stingy on watering. Maybe I can ramp that up too. There are some new flowers as well. Itās just they never seem to turn into fruit. Iāll try more water, see how it goes.
@calron something I do to help with fruit set on tomatoes is ādrummingā my fingers on the stalk or trust. I learned that from MIGardener on YouTube last year. It supposedly simulates a bee landing on the flowers. Since I started drumming my plants every time I go by them Iāve noticed an increase in fruit set. Itās free to try, so give it a whirl.
By the way, some years back I grew tomatoes in south central Floridaā¦planted in December, a few ripe tomatoes in March. (but one year they got frozen and killed at 17 degrees). Avoided the lack of fruit set in the heat in the winter months.
This is a volunteer tomato that popped up this spring. Growing better than the store purchased ones. I thought itād be a Sun gold since I had sun gold in this spot last year. But whatever it is, itās not Sungold.
Here it is: