My tomatoes are always too small

[Jc1]

I have been growing tomatoes in my greenhouse now for 3 seasons and every year they are never bigger than marble size, also I never get them to ripen until August September, what I'm I doing wrong ??

[applestar]

There are many different varieties of tomatoes -- different fruit sizes, shapes, and colors; different maturity times; also different mature plant sizes. Do you grow yours from seeds or buy already started plants? You will have more choices if you grow from seeds.

Grow them in as big containers as possible. Most tomatoes need containers that are measured in several gallons -- tubs.

[CharlieBear]

There are varieties of tomatoes that are best suited to greenhouses. Some do well and other simply do not. Generally the shorter determinates to better that the indeterminates, but not always.
I am wondering if are talking about growing tomatoes in what is wintertime for you. If so remember that without light supplimentation the light my be the determining factor. Things simply grow more slowly during shortened days even in greenhouses and that has to be factored into how long it will take to maturity.
If you are curious you might look at the web site for Genesis seeds, an Isreally organic seed company that has a lot of seed for greenhouse production. You might recognize some of the varieties and could then try those and see if they work any better.
Make sure your containers are very large, the soil subsitute has all the nutrients like calcium and the fertilzer and water the plants need. Don't let them dry out too much. Generally tomatoes grown in pots are smaller and less productive for most people than those in the ground. I hope this helps some.

[james_coale]

Are you giving them enough time to mature? Tomato varieties mature over
a wide range of time spans, commonly from 75 days for early cherry types to 85 days for early full size fruit types, 100 days for medium, and 110 days for later, full season varieties from direct seeded plantings.

[Kay&Kev]

I agree with all the above posts and reasons for why you might be producing small tomatoes. I usually buy young tomato plants from my garden center and I too had the same problem of small tomato plants and fruit. I discovered that I was planting the tomato plant to it's original roots. If the tomato plant's roots are small, the plant won't put all it's energy into producing a large plant and big fruit. It's just trying to survive. Dig a hole deep enough to bury most of the plant with 4-6 inches sticking out of the top. This will cause roots to sprout from every part of the stem and give the plant a good root base. Instead of a inch or two of roots, you've now gave the plant a foot or more of root base. I have done this method and I grew a tomato plant six feet tall last season with stems an inch thick. I was able to produce large store sized tomatoes in my backyard thanks to this method.

So if the variety of tomato is fine, the fertilizer, greenhouse conditions, and everything else the previous posts have described, then maybe something like this will work for you. It has worked for me.

Hope you can figure out your problem and hope this helps.

[ElizabethB]

DITTO Kay&Kev. Whether started from seed or nursery starts I always plant my tomatoes DEEP. 2/3 to 3/4 of the plant buried. For green house production - very large containers. Region specific varieties and proper light and heat.

Good luck.

[rainbowgardener]

You've gotten good answers, but I will just pile on a little. We do need more info. Timing is part of it. Sometimes southern gardeners try to grow tomatoes in the summertime, because we think of tomatoes as a summer thing. But in all those places like TX and FL tomatoes are not a summer plant. Tomatoes like warm, but they don't like hot. Once the temps are up in the 90's, they won't do much.

Alternatively, if you are a northern gardener, maybe you are not starting them soon enough. I start tomatoes from seed indoors, somewhere between Valentines day and the first of March. That way I have good sized tomato plants to set out as soon as the ground is warm enough.

[Juliuskitty]

Might I suggest to check that the soil in your containers has good drainage. Using actual potting soil instead of mix is a mistake. Also, most people I know get very poor results with the moisture control stuff. It's good for in the ground( not great though) but not for container tomatoes. Doesn't release enough water for theplants to thrive. For tomatoes it is always better to use a non-soil potting mix, then add your garden lime/dolomite lime to it to bring the pH up, and mix well with a good organic fert( I like composted cow manure because it is effective, cheap, easy to get). I mix 1 cup dolomite lime( garden lime ) to a 2.8 cu ft bag of potting mix, and I mix in Cow manure using 60% potting mix to 40% cow manure. That's the simple way. This works really well for peppers and eggplant too. Note: never use any soil or cow manure in a self watering container as it will muddy the wicking system rendering it ineffective. The above description is for regular pots only. I hope this helps, but please go into detail on what is in your pots, and what varieties you are growing. We need to know what you are doing to help you problem solve.

[ElizabethB]

DITTO all of the above. Please give more information on your local as in city and state - not just a USDA growing zone. Also more information on you pots, soil and growing conditions. Also specify the varieties of tomatoes you are growing. They may or may not be suitable to your region/growing conditions. The more information you provide the better the response will be.

Looking forward to hearing more from you.

[xtgold]

possibly a pollination problem.
I've had puny tomatoes indoors during the winter that had no seeds at all,the same with my 1st tomatoes outdoors last year in the wall'o water.

[Juliuskitty]

Xt, tomatoes are self pollinating and so mostly that isn't likely to be an issue.

[imafan26]

It would help if you gave us a little more information
1 Please put your zone and location in your profile it helps with getting appropriate answers
2. What variety did you plant? If you planted cherries or micro toms they are going to be small tomatoes

Tomatoes like a pH between 6.0-6.8 and they are heavy feeders.

If you are growing them in the ground in your greenhouse, then get a soil test and make sure they know you are growing tomatoes. If you want organic recommendations, ask for it or they will give you a conventional answer. If they give you the recommendation in pounds per acre, you will need to do some converting. There are 43560 square feet in an acre. The total nitrogen recommendation should be divided into two or three feeding. If your tomatoes last as long as mine can, maybe even more feedings every month.

If you are growing them in pots, they should be in potting soil and not dirt. If you are growing indeterminate tomatoes they should be in a big pot. I like to use 18 gallon tubs for a single indeterminate tomato. Whether in the ground or in pots they should be two or three feet apart for good air circulation and root space.
I have used miracle grow potting mix and supplemented with citrus food 6-4-6 (vigoro Citrus and Avocado food). It also contains micros. I do not add calcium to my mix although other people do. I do not have problems with BER. When I make my own mix, I use 50/50 peat moss and perlite with a couple of handfuls of vermicast thrown in if I have it. I do not put compost in the pots, it stays too wet and eventually has problems draining and the roots will rot.

To grow more tomatoes in a small space tomatoes should be trained to a wire or pole. Indeterminate tomatoes can be pruned to a single leader. Pinching off side shoots will result in more and larger tomatoes. Make sure you take off all of the leaves on the bottom that can touch the soil. Tomatoes grow best at 50-85 degrees anything lower and they will either not germinate or dampen off and anything higher will not set fruit unless you have a heat resistant variety. Tomatoes need at least 6 hours of full sun or equivalent lighting. Do not prune determinate tomatoes or you will prune off all of your fruit. Indeterminates can easily grow to 8 ft tall.

If you have a large variety tomato that is still small it could be that the plant is not being fed enough or you have too much fruit for the vine to support. Pruning indeterminates to a single leader will help with that. Fruit will also be smaller and take longer to mature when days are shorter and cooler in winter. If your greenhouse temperatures can get into optimal range and they get supplemental lighting that might help. Otherwise plant tomatoes at the best time of the year for your area.

[tomc]

Temperature won't always limit size of fruits. But its probably worth noting that tomato are perfect blooming (meaning pollination doesn't need a bee to happen), AND that tucked away pollen moves better and less well when plants are cold (under 50F) or hot (above 85F). So if the pollen isn't mobile, or is sterile, fruit are affected.

If you see flowers come and go without fruit, its the heat or cold.

[applestar]

Everyone who has been posting recently has provided excellent information, but it looks like this is actually an older thread (OP was posted in 2012 by a member who only has a post count of 1) so it's not likely that they will be coming back.

But it makes for a really good discussion about what could cause diminished fruit size of a known variety.

When I grew Spudakee in 1-2 gallon pots, the fruits were only about 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter -- a saladette size -- rather than the normal 3-4" shaped slicer and even larger beefsteak.

[Juliuskitty]

Let's keep up the discussion. There are a few other reasons that flowers can come and go with no fruits. One is diseases, specifically fungus. The second is insects, thrips will do it, aphids and whiteflies also, and the new little horror on my block: Engytatus Modestus, aka the Tomato Bug. Here's some info: it has piercing sucking mouthparts, prefers the flowers, has a hard shell so no organic spray will work on it, is only about 5mm and tomato plant green, and it flies so it flies off as spray comes at it, and if your plant has a virus, it will transport it from plant to plant. It lays its eggs in an internode hollowing it out, then the whole branch breaks when the fruit gets heavy enough. I am trying alert people to it.
Here's a photo. Those black images are 5mm in size.

[imafan26]

I know I can never grow giant tomatoes in Hawaii. The biggest tomatoes and pumpkins grow where the summer days are very long. I can get tomatoes close to a pound but even Delicious which produced a Guinness record heavy tomato did not quite make a pound. The longest day here is barely 14 hours the shortest about 10 hours.

I had a friend who had been using the tomato set spray because he said his tomatoes never set. I asked and he was growing the tomatoes on a small strip of land between two multistory apartment buildings and the alley way did not get a lot of wind and only a couple of hours of light. So I told him, he did not need the spray, if he tapped the plant when it was in bloom to get it to drop pollen. No tooth brushes needed. I also told him there was probably not enough light if the plant only got sun for a couple of hours a day.

I noticed too, when the plant gets older and the leaves start dying, here mostly from fungal disease, the plant does keep trying to produce fruit, but the fruit does get smaller.

[feldon30]

Looks like we're trying to help someone who posted one time over two years ago and never came back. Might be worth closing the thread and/or splitting off the useful replies to a new thread.