Healthy Strong tomato plants but no tomatoes

[Steve-O]

I live in NW Montana and planted 6-7 heirloom tomato plants back in mid-June. I've given them consistent water via a drip system, have not fertilized, have sprinkled some egg shells around the base of the plants once (was told this was good for calcium to prevent bottom end rot which I've had here before), and have pulled off the suckers early on.

The plants are growing healthy and strong. However, aside from a clump of huge tomatoes on two of the plants, there are only 2-3 other small tomatoes on the rest of the plants combined.

Any suggestions?

Thank you!

P.S. Oh, and the weather has been good - warm but not too hot.

[The Helpful Gardener]

No mention of fertilizing, which I suspect is the issue here. Yes/no? With what?

HG

[rainbowgardener]

Too much nitrogen might have been my first thought, but Steve-O said he has not been fertilizing. So unless for some reason the soil was already loaded with nitrogen, that seems like not it.

Steve-O you already ruled out a lot of the usual suspects, not too hot weather, etc. Your tomato plants are in full sun, right? Otherwise are they varieties you are used to growing that have produced better for you before? Brandywine for example has a reputation for being very low producing.

Since I don't have any answers, give us a little more info. What varieties of heirlooms? How are they doing otherwise (eg. huge, normal sized, stunted)? What do you know about how your soil is and what type of soil you have? Any thing else you can tell us?

[Steve-O]

Hi Folks,

Thx so much for the responses. I've not fertilized at all.

These plants are Brandywine heirlooms and I've not planted them here before.

The plants are doing great - huge healthy stalks, lots of leaves, big plants (I planted them 4 feet apart and they are now one big hedge (I need to learn how to stake tomatoes, I guess). They also have lots blossoms. Just very few tomatoes.

That said, there was one ripe tomato on one of the plants that we picked, sliced up, and ate tonight. And it was the sweetest tomato that I've ever had.

I just need to figure out how to get more of them!

Thanks, Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Well you will notice in my prior post even before you said what you were growing is Brandywines, I singled them out as having a reputation for low production (of great tomatoes! ). Type brandywine into the search box at upper left of most pages and find other people's experience with this.

But tomatoes like very rich organic soil. The best thing you could do for them is dig a little bit of compost in around them (without disturbing the roots) and then top dress with some more and water it in. While you are at it, you could bury a banana peel near them. They need more potassium for fruiting and the banana peel is a source.

[Gerrie]

My Brandywines are doing the same thing, here in Ore. All other types have lots of tomatoes, Brandywine gave me one-ONE! There's lots of flowers, big healthy leaves, no tomatoes, I'll try the bananna peel, thanks for the suggestion. BTW, how often should I put a skin out? And one on each plant or just one near the base of all four of them?

[The Helpful Gardener]

Two so far from my Pink Brandywine; more fruit behind them but the Patios are loaded and I've been eating Sweet 100's from the vine for weeks already. Such is the nature of Brandywines; sorry I missed your fertilizing note last time, but RBG is spot on. Excess nitrogen CAN do that and it doesn't need to be artificial. Biological action higher in bacterial life than fungal (think green to browns, or nitrogen to carbon, like compost) can lock nitrogen. You can get soil very bacterial with a lot of manure, for instance, and create a huge amount of nitrogen rich bacteria (Bacteria are around a 5:1 carbon to nitrogen,and fungii are near 30:1, so more fungii cuts the numbers of bacteria, so less nitrogen is locked up in biology, and more carbon to boot!). I find that leaf/manure composts do the best job of balancing that naturally, so you'll hear us talk about compost an awful lot. A real, real lot...

All in all, not a bad problem to have and you are eating tomatoes. Brandywines really make you appreciate a good tomato all the more, and I suspect there will always be one in my garden. Hope you enjoy yours...

HG