NJ Gardeners..... any luck with tomatoes???

[Jerseygardengirl]

I'm in zone 7 and all I have are 7' tall plants with few blossoms on some and practically none on some of the other ones. It's so frustrating, I am longing for a fresh tomato SO bad! Anyone else having this problem? It's really making me sad, as my garden is my baby lol.

[rainbowgardener]

Are they not blooming at all or is it making blossoms but they drop off without setting fruit? Tell us more about the conditions they are growing in and what your weather has been like...

But in the meantime the commonest cause of no flowers at all is too much fertilizer, especially nitrogen. The fact that they are 7' tall sounds like that. Nitrogen stimulates lots of growth, but discourages fruiting. If you've been using nitrogen fertilizer, then flush the soil well, add something with P-K to balance it out and then quit fertilizing and minimize watering. Clip off the growing tips of the branches to discourage it from keeping on getting taller.

If it is making flowers but they are dropping off with no fruit, that is called blossom drop. There's been a lot written on it here (type blossom drop into search box at upper left of most pages), but it is a stress reaction. The plant sheds flowers to focus on plant survival when it is stressed. Too much nitrogen can do that also, but also too little, too much or too little water, etc, anything that stresses the plant.

[jamesy]

Hi NJ Girl , I totally can relate , I'm in Bucks county Pa right on your doorstep and my tomatos are so far behind it just isnt funny.Considerably bigger than 7" though and yet to blossem a single flower.Meanwhile the peppers right next to it are flowering and beginning to produce in some cases.
Whats wrong this year..I don't know , I had monster tomato plants last year , huge they were..10 ft high easy and prolific with the fruit.

[Jerseygardengirl]

Hi, thanks for the responses. The blossoms aren't dropping off it just seems as if the plants are dormant. When I first transplanted them back on April 20th, the weather was unseasonably cool and extremely wet. As a result, it did set back the plants a few weeks.... 22 days of rain in June! However, thus far, July has been dryer and a lot warmer. They are flowering but it is just sitting there, not doing anything. I have been fertilizing with Miracle-Gro but I am going to switch to the one made specifically for tomato plants as there is less nitrogen in that one. I fertilized them roughly every 2 weeks. I'm not sure why they seem like they're just sitting there doing nothing now.

[applestar]

I have green tomatoes everywhere, and have been picking ripe Sugar Plum grape tomatoes for about a week now, and 3 from a Mystery tomato (a volunteer) that seems to ripen at about 2". Lots of little Hover Flies and Sweat Bees are busy around the flowers; and today I even saw Hummingbirds regularly visiting the tomato flowers (I didn't know they were interested in tomato flowers! ...but then, I just recently posted that a couple of males were fighting over Deadly Nightshade flowers, so I guess it makes sense afterall.... ). Another Mystery tomato -- this one's a pointy egg-shaped about 2" across and 3" long -- is *almost* ripe -- actually, THIS is The April Fool, for those of you who remember him.

[liz63]

I'm in NYC. I have tomatoes on my Yellow submarine, enchantment, sweetie cherry and just started a carmello. I am just getting buds on my Applause and have lots of flowers but no tomatoes yet on my Cherokee purple, beefy boy, and eva purple ball. Hopefully soon. Looks like all the tomatoes will come at once

[SHRXTC]

Hi!! I'm in Brooklyn and the weather this year did not help at all.
Although the past few weeks with the sun helped my garden alot.
My tomato plants (Cherry & Beef) stalled but the past few weeks with the sun it totally grew. A few of my Cherry Tomatoes are turning red (picked a few the other day) and the Beef Tomatoes are still green.
I worried my garden wouldn't grow this year since we had so much rain.
So a few weeks ago I put some fertilizer (for the soil) in my garden.
Maybe that helped.
Check your soil and see how it is.

[Brandywinegirl]

I am in the Philadelphia area and have tomatoes on all 21 tomato plants - Brandywine, Rutgers and Porterhouse Hybrid. The only problem is the Early Blight - I removed the bad leaves. All of the tomatoes are green and I am just waiting for them to ripen.

Has anyone else heard that when the tomatoes are ripening, not to water them to keep them from being too watery & cracking???

[rainbowgardener]

Please keep watering your tomatoes! Tomatoes crack when they aren't watered regularly. If they dry out, the skin hardens up. Then if they get a bunch of water, they swell up faster than the skin can stretch and they crack. It isn't the watering that caused it, it's the drying out first. So don't over water, but never let your tomatoes dry out.

[SusieQ]

I live in northern NJ. I had to buy a longer stake the other day. The guy at the garden center looked at it, said "for a tomatoe plant" and then told me that all the tomatoes are behind because of the weather we had in June. All the rain and no sun. Your tomatoes will come in. I have 3 beef, two in the ground and one in a pot. The potted one has fruit although nothing has ripened. The 2 in the ground are just starting to blossom.

[Jerseygardengirl]

I live in northern NJ. I had to buy a longer stake the other day. The guy at the garden center looked at it, said "for a tomatoe plant" and then told me that all the tomatoes are behind because of the weather we had in June. All the rain and no sun. Your tomatoes will come in. I have 3 beef, two in the ground and one in a pot. The potted one has fruit although nothing has ripened. The 2 in the ground are just starting to blossom.

Yeah it stinks that they are behind! Thanks for the reassurance, I yearn for the first fresh tomato!