Question by supermontage1975: How can I make my tomato plants produce tomatos?
My plants bloom but make no tomatos. The plants are large and beautiful otherwise and I fertilize them with miracle grow tomato food. What’s wrong.
I live in southern Louisiana. The seeds are from Johnny’s Seed Company and the variety is Brandywine. I have 3 other varieties Moscovich, San Marzano, and Washington Cherry. All grown from seed. Only the Brandywine is not productive and I’ve given them all similar treatment.
Thank you for your excellent answers but it appears patience was the missing ingredient. Today I see I have tomatos :).
Best answer:
Answer by notyou311
Stop fertilizing them!!! The fertilizer promotes leaf growth not the growth of the fruit. You can also buy a product at Home Depot to spray on the yellow blossoms to help set the fruit. I have many tomato plants and I mix a very small amount of fertilizer into the soil when I plant them but do NOT fertilize them after that.
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I can think of three things –
1. You may be giving them too much fertilizer. Once a month is often enough.
2. If your nights have been very cool tomatoes will not set fruit. Once nights are at least in the 50’s they will start to set.
3. If you raised them from seed and the seeds were from a hybrid tomato the offspring plants may not set fruit. If you bought the plants you can forget this one.
Good luck, with gardening patience is necessary.
They’re likely not getting adequate pollination. Buy a can of Blossom Set. That should do it.
Or you can help the plants by shaking them, or by hand pollinating.
Too much water will cause a poor yield. If you are using a vegi-fertilizer read carefully on when and how much and how often. Pull back on both your water and your food.If your evenings are a little cooler then ideal, set out liter bottles of water around your plants. The sun will warm them in the day and keep the temps up at night,pollination is a must, if you have used insecticide in your garden your beneficial insects may have left. Be careful when using these products near pollinating times for your plants. You can self pollinate, take time but it works. Take a small paint brush and transfer polling from one blossom to another, continue this periodically through out the season, just think of your self as a busy bee!
Good luck ….Grandma
Choose a sunny spot to place the plants. Place tomato plants in a site receiving full sun (7 hours or more daily) Tomatoes need lots of warm sunshine to taste good. Prepare the garden bed by adding lots of compost (5 to 8 pounds per square foot) to the soil. Turn compost into the top 3 inches. Tomatoes demand a growing medium rich in organic matter. If you don’t make your own compost, use store-bought compost or composted manure available in the 40-pound bags. Transplant the tomato deeply. Bury about 75% of the plant. It’s okay to bury some of its leaves. This will ensure a strong stem that later will support the heavy fruit. Give each plant about 1 gallon of warm water (about 80 degree F) within ten minutes of transplanting to avoid transplant shock. Space tomato plants 18 to 24 inches apart. Once the plant has been successfully transplanted, continue to water about 16 ounces of warm water daily per plant for the next seven days. A week or two after transplanting, use a mulch of straw, dried grass, or pine needles to control weeds and keep the soil moist during dry weather. The mulch should be at least an inch thick and surround at least a circle 12 inches in diameter. A week or two after transplanting, ensure plants get 1 to 3 inches of rain weekly. If not, give each plant about 2 gallons per plant per week. The tomato plant should be watered 2 to 3 times weekly (so, water each plant with about .75 to 1 gallon each time). A week or two after transplanting, consider using a tomato cage OR a stake to support the tomato vine. A wooden stake should be at least .5 inch thick and 6 to 8 feet long. Pound stakes about 12 to 24 inches deep, at least 2 inches away from the plant. Secure the plant to the stake using loose knotted double-loops that won’t strangle the plant. Stakes can be made of bamboo, scrap wood, or iron rebar. A cage should be at least 48 inches tall. Cages have a tendency to bend if the plants get heavy, and sometimes collapse in summer storms. Carefully pull leaves and secondary stems inside the cage as the plant grows. If you choose to use fertilizer, many gardeners use half the recommended concentration per gallon, but fertilize twice as often. Follow directions on the package. Watch for fruit to appear 50 to 90 days after transplanting. Tomato plants usually have small green fruit to start. Wait until the fruit is of good size with a bright, deep red coloring. This means that the fruit is ripe and ready to pick. The texture of the fruit can also determine if it is ready to pick. Ripeness is usually determined by a slight softness. Be careful not to squeeze too hard and bruise the fruit. Also, be careful of allowing it to become overly ripe, which results in a very soft tomato.