Got a tomato question

[weaponx88]

I have several tomato plants and most are in 5 gal buckets and doing pretty well. I had planted a couple of my favorites from seed and put half the seedlings in buckets and the other half in the ground. The ones in the buckets are doing well and have blossomed pretty good as have all my other buckets which were planted from store bought plants. The ones in the ground are ENORMOUS in size and very green with nice thick stems and I'm guessing at least twice (or more) the size of the ones in the buckets but have VERY few blossoms, barely anything at all but the plant itself looks absolutely beautiful in size and color. Seriously, why the difference??? You'd think the ground planted ones would be blossoming like crazy but it is the other way around??

[Smallgardener]

I would guess that the bucket maters are stressing from something and going into reproductive phase in response. When tomatoes have really good growing conditions it will grow and not put on fruit. They like a happy medium in my opinion. Too much Nitrogen will make them grow plant but not much fruit. It took me 2 years to get my excess N under control. Now my plants are only 4 ft tall and have set fruit on when the weather was cooler. Once we hit 95 plus degree days they simply quit putting on fruit. Mine will set on again in mid august when we get a cool down. I have grown maters in buckets and they never get huge. Probably because they get rootbound in the bucket.

[Bobberman]

I have a tomato in a large planter about 8 gallon. Its 6 feet tall with some blossoms but no fruit! My tomatoes in the garden are nice but the first few ripe ones had rot at the bottom I think from the heat and dry ground!