Tomatoes grew reall tall before flowering

[adebourget]

We had an unusually cold start to summer and two of my tomato plants grew pretty tall befoer they started to flower. Did I plant them with too much fertilizer (organic of course)? Just wondering why that happened. Now the fruit is coming, but it's all at the top of the cage! I don't want to prune any more, but they will start flopping over the top. Any thoughts?
Thanks!

[rainbowgardener]

What was your organic fertilizer and how high in nitrogen was it? High nitrogen fertilizer promotes vegetative growth at the expense of fruiting and you get what you are seeing.... big leafy plants with no fruit.

If you think that could be your problem, try adding some bone meal and kelp to balance out the nitrogen. But what's done is done and your plants aren't going to get any shorter. So read the Sticky at the top of this Forum about supporting tomatoes, get some ideas about what to do now to make sure all those top branches don't break off when they get fruit on them.

[applestar]

What variety are you growing? I'm growing so many varieties this year, and am seeing the various problems and observations that folks are making on DIFFERENT varieties even though they were basically grown under same conditions and are growing in the same New Tomato Bed. Mind you, they're not getting IDEAL care -- we've had drought, I overplanted but am not pruning, I'm not fertilizing -- but so far (knock on wood) they are healthy with no to minimum disease problems. Just occasional BER on ONE variety -- Yellow Bell.

I'm really beginning to think that many of the issues are variety specific and can be avoided or lived with depending on what you are looking for and what you choose to grow.

I say this because, YES!, I do have one or two varieties that refused to flower or set fruit until they were very tall and are now fruiting at the top of the 7 foot trellis.

What I've been doing is to train the vines in an arch as they get too tall, BEFORE something makes them flop over and the stem is bent. Some, I've intertwined with another stem, others I've trained to wrap around the top of the trellis. Tomatoes ARE vines, and the leaf tips will curl to grab onto support, kind of like Clematis. Make use of that and give them something to hold onto -- let them hold eachother's "hand" if there's nothing else. AGAIN, some varieties retain the vining leaf characteristics more than others.

[adebourget]

I'll have to look up the numbers on the fertilizer. Thanks for the advice! Much appreciated.