"Mike S." wrote in message
oups.com...
I'm a beginner at growing tomatoes. I've a few plants growing outside
in 5 gallon pots - one plant per pot. It seems to me that they should
have ripened already.

The plant with the most tomatoes is the Patio one. I saw the first
tomato on it about a month ago. I planted the plant about 7 weeks ago
but I had bought it at a nursery after it already started growing.
There are several tomatoes on it but they're all green still. Today, a
little tomato fell off while I was trying to fix it after some vines
started drooping after some heavy rains the other day.

The other two plants are Big Boy and Better Boy. Neither of them are
doing much. They each have about two small tomatoes on them. They're
about the size of two cherry tomatoes (I think). I bought and planted
them the same time as the Patio one.

The weather around here has been a bit unsettled. First we were in a
drought, now we've had a lot of rain and some areas have had flooding.
The temp. has been mostly in the 80s and lower 90s. The past few nights
have been cool though. One week, there was lots of rain and little
sunshine. Somewhat unusual summer weather for around here.

The plants are in pots that are sitting on wood blocks above the
ground. They have holes in the bottom for drainage and have been
mulched. The leaves develop yellowish spots on them and sometimes get
dried out and crumble. They get some liquid plant food once a week.
About 2 quarts between the three of them. It's hard for me to know when
to water them with this weather. Maybe they've been getting too much
water and not enough sunshine. Or maybe they've been getting too much
nitrogen and not enough calcium. I don't know. I'm fairly certain they
don't have any diseases or pests.

Any ideas?


Although it's probably not the cause, you may be feeding the plants too
often. I feed mine (grown in the garden) twice per season. They're healthy
and productive. Once a week feeding seems like a bit much, unless the plant
food's very dilute.