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ASHad a terrible year with tomatoes. (Last year was marvelous.)
ASThey put out blossoms galore, but never turned into tomatoes.
ASFriend suggested I get a spray to "fix" the blossoms.
ASI did, but no luck.

ASThe one plant, near the compost bin, is still valiantly blossoming
ASbut no tomatoes.

ASAny suggestions?

PBS gardener, Tom Cottle suggested many years ago to add about
a tablespoon of upson salts to ones' gallon of liquid fertilizer
when tomatoes blossom. Works for me here in New England (about
4th of July 8-).

I tried the hormones but it didn't seem to help.

Ciao, Ack.
---
þ SLMR 2.1a þ You gotta know when to code'em and when to modem.

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"THURSTON ACKERMAN" wrote in
message ...
PBS gardener, Tom Cottle suggested many years ago to add about
a tablespoon of upson salts to ones' gallon of liquid fertilizer
when tomatoes blossom. Works for me here in New England (about
4th of July 8-).

I tried the hormones but it didn't seem to help.

Ciao, Ack.

you can also sprinkle 2-3 tablespoons of the granular Epsom Salts into each
planting hole and mix with the soil when you plant the little buggers. I
also plant them up to their leaves burying the stem so they'll form a
stronger root system to support the vines. Yes, you're right. They need
magnesium and drop their blossoms if they don't have enough. And too much
nitrogen will make beautiful leaves but no fruit. Also, temperatures over
84o F will prevent the setting of fruit, unless you have specific heat
tolerant varieties...
madgardener

madgardener wrote:

"THURSTON ACKERMAN" wrote in
message ...
PBS gardener, Tom Cottle suggested many years ago to add about
a tablespoon of upson salts to ones' gallon of liquid fertilizer
when tomatoes blossom. Works for me here in New England (about
4th of July 8-).

I tried the hormones but it didn't seem to help.

Ciao, Ack.

you can also sprinkle 2-3 tablespoons of the granular Epsom Salts into each
planting hole and mix with the soil when you plant the little buggers. I
also plant them up to their leaves burying the stem so they'll form a
stronger root system to support the vines. Yes, you're right. They need
magnesium and drop their blossoms if they don't have enough. And too much
nitrogen will make beautiful leaves but no fruit. Also, temperatures over
84o F will prevent the setting of fruit, unless you have specific heat
tolerant varieties...
madgardener

Night-time temperatures below 50F will also cause a failure of
tomato flowers to form fruit. This failure can be mitigated with
certain plant hormone sprays.

The failure caused by daytime temperatures being too high cannot be
similarly corrected. The only mitigation for high temperatures
might be shade cloth and misting, to keep the temperatures from
getting too high.

--

David E. Ross
http://www.rossde.com/

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See http://www.mozilla.org/.

"David Ross" wrote in message
...
madgardener wrote:

"THURSTON ACKERMAN" wrote in
message ...

Night-time temperatures below 50F will also cause a failure of
tomato flowers to form fruit. This failure can be mitigated with
certain plant hormone sprays.

The failure caused by daytime temperatures being too high cannot be
similarly corrected. The only mitigation for high temperatures
might be shade cloth and misting, to keep the temperatures from
getting too high.

David E. Ross

Misting increases blight problems IMHO and shade cloth is a bit pricey for
many home gardeners. For high temperatures I tried a variety called 'Sun
Leaper' last year that produced a huge quantity of large, smooth tomatoes
that were wonderful for canning when temperatures were really warm. They
didn't have as good as flavor as many others, but they produced after the
others quit and certainly tasted better than the pale, plastic blobs one
finds in stores.

John