Stubby wrote:
D.D. Palmer wrote:

My tomato plants look terrific this year, but many flowers are falling
off and not setting. Never had this problem before. Help!

I had a friend who fertilized frequently with Miracle Grow (I believe).
He wound up with 8' high green tomato plants but no tomatoes because
of all the nitrogen. Use a little fertilizer after planting and then
stop unless there is some reason. Plants need to starve a little to
make them set fruit.

With tomatoes I found it best to stress them with respect to watering
infrequently. That's common knowledge. It avoids splits, spongy fruit
and blossom drop. However in my experience a spray of Miracle Grow and a
tespoon of sugar to the gallon once a week has done nothing but help
produce, produce, produce, tomatoes.

Your friend's problems with his plants could be a result of other issues
as well.

I'm in the eastern part of PA about a 6-hour drive from Pittsburgh where the
OP is located. I have plenty of buds on my plants and many are falling off.
I have two plants in containers and two directly in the ground. The
container plants were at one point about 4 times the size of the ground
ones. Now the container plants are getting yellow leaves around the bottom
of the plants and the in-ground plants are all nice and green. The plants
are the "Big Boy" variety. I water the container plants quite a bit because
I'm assuming the soil will dry out more because the sun shines on the side
of the containers increasing the soil temperature higher than those in the
ground would experience. No signs of little maters on any of the four
plants at this point.

Anxious in PA


"D.D. Palmer" wrote in message
...
My tomato plants look terrific this year, but many flowers are falling off
and not setting. Never had this problem before. Help!

I have a 6 foot cherry tomato and same problem as yours. It's not
setting fruits. I started having flowers since 2 months ago. Now I have
about 100 flowers and the plant is very healthy. The problem is as of
now there are only 4 tiny fruits. The flowers are not falling off. They
are dry after a while.

I guess my mistake was that I used too much Micracle-Grow when I
transplanted it back in April. Is there anything I can do now to solve
this problem ? I have just removed a lot of suckers and sideshoots.
Hopefully all nutrients are now going to setting fruits, rather than
producing ton of leaves. Will that help? I live in Seattle, WA and we
haven't really got our summer yet. Maybe the lack of consistent
sunshire is my problem here.

wrote:
I'm in the eastern part of PA about a 6-hour drive from Pittsburgh where the
OP is located. I have plenty of buds on my plants and many are falling off.
I have two plants in containers and two directly in the ground. The
container plants were at one point about 4 times the size of the ground
ones. Now the container plants are getting yellow leaves around the bottom
of the plants and the in-ground plants are all nice and green. The plants
are the "Big Boy" variety. I water the container plants quite a bit because
I'm assuming the soil will dry out more because the sun shines on the side
of the containers increasing the soil temperature higher than those in the
ground would experience. No signs of little maters on any of the four
plants at this point.

Anxious in PA



Overwater and you'll get blossom drop. Don't overwater the tomatoes.

nnnnn wrote:
I have a 6 foot cherry tomato and same problem as yours. It's not
setting fruits. I started having flowers since 2 months ago. Now I have
about 100 flowers and the plant is very healthy. The problem is as of
now there are only 4 tiny fruits. The flowers are not falling off. They
are dry after a while.

I guess my mistake was that I used too much Micracle-Grow when I
transplanted it back in April. Is there anything I can do now to solve
this problem ? I have just removed a lot of suckers and sideshoots.
Hopefully all nutrients are now going to setting fruits, rather than
producing ton of leaves. Will that help? I live in Seattle, WA and we
haven't really got our summer yet. Maybe the lack of consistent
sunshire is my problem here.



Don't overwater. 'Stress' the plant a bit. Mucho sunhine is mas bueno.