Lots of blooms - no tomatoes

[wolfie]

Zen, did you start your plants by seed, or did you buy them somewhere? If you bought them, where did you buy them from?

I have a set of plants I bought from Wal-Mart, and the all have blossoms and very little fruit, they have yellowing leaves and are stunted in growth.

The one's I bought from my local nursery all have huge tomatoes, lots of blooms, great leaves and are growing way too tall that I had to stake them even with their tomato cages LOL

I think how you started them has alot to do with it.

[Digthedirt]

Zenful, have you tried getting information from google? There are some great bits of advice out there. Call your County extension service and ask them about the problem. Sometimes the weather has an effect on whether or not tomatoes set fruit. It's a hit or miss. Have any blosoms dried up and dropped off?
Have you tried pollinating them by hand?

[zenful6219]

Zen, did you start your plants by seed, or did you buy them somewhere? If you bought them, where did you buy them from?

I have a set of plants I bought from Wal-Mart, and the all have blossoms and very little fruit, they have yellowing leaves and are stunted in growth.

The one's I bought from my local nursery all have huge tomatoes, lots of blooms, great leaves and are growing way too tall that I had to stake them even with their tomato cages LOL

I think how you started them has alot to do with it.

I bought my plants from Wal-Mart. and Lowe's

[wolfie]

That may be part of the problem unfortunately

[that girl boo]

Hey Zenful
I live in central TX as well and I planted about 8 tomato plants. All of my plants were purchased from a nursery.
Two-pink heirloom
Two-black crim
Two-Arkansas travelers
One Cherry and One Yellow Boy

Two of the plants in my new box are really big and full of blooms, but I've only received three tomato's. In my older established box I have a yellow boy tomato plant that's about 4 feet by 3 feet wide. I have soo many blooms at least 50 yet I only have 5 tomatoes. The flowers aren't even falling off right away, they're making me suffer by staying on then falling off.

If you would like I will attach a few pictures, I know things are being pollinated properly because many other things are blooming, just not these darn tomatoes.

This weekend I'm gonna add some more compost, and see if that helps
right now I'm frustrated

[petalfuzz]

It might be the weather, too. I've got lots of blooms and more every day but no fruit yet. The only way to tell if it is fertilized or not is if there is swelling in the flower stem. The minimum time for fertilization is 48 hours, and if the conditions aren't right, then nothing will happen unfortunately.

[SushiBunni]

I've had the same issue in the past. The first year of my garden experiment I purchased Wal-mart tomato plants and ended up with huge wonderful plants with tons of blooms but never any tomatoes. Since then I go out of my way to buy plants from Farmer's Markets, and local plant sales. I think that the bigger retail stores are more about quantity not quality when it comes to seedings. (Who knows where the seeds originated from?)
My current tomato patch is doing pretty good even with our North Idaho late start- due to an above average snow year. I actually have two ripe red Glacier toms that I should pick tonight and my Siletz Tomato plant has about 6 baseball sized green tomatoes at the moment. This year I have 8 verities and all are at different stages of tomato production. All of my plants are now purchased as seedlings from local sources, and I have treated all past plants and current plants equal-with the same watering schedule, the same fertilizer, the same bees and butterflies, planted in the same place-the only major difference was this year’s bad weather prolonged start, which has not much affected this year’s crop.
My suggestion is to avoid those lusty looking Wal-mart tomato plants bursting out of their biodegradable pots beckoning everyone with the $3.97 price tag (I have to fight the force of the tomato dark side every time I am near the garden center each spring). It is honestly not worth the time and energy. As for Lowes I can't say, but it sounds like the same situation.
One idea that might work for your current tomatoes is to shock your plants (tell them dirty jokes about manure-ha ha err ha). An annual's only goal in life is to produce seeds. Your tomato plants might need to be reminded of this. You could give your tomato plants a severe pruning which might shock them into production mode (I know that this works well with dandelions). It sounds like you have a couple of plants to experiment with, so I just wanted to add that I've read to water non-producing plants with apple juice. Not sure about that one, but who knows. Best of Luck to you, hopefully better luck then me with those horrid Wal-mart tomato seedlings.

PS if all else fails return those dang things back to Wal-mart and get your money back…

[highridgejoe]

around here we are seeing a decrease in bee activity...might be part of the problem...

[petalfuzz]

Growing plants from seed is so rewarding! I don't know why people buy unknown seedlings at stores. I loved pouring through catalogs and picking out the most attractive sounding seeds. I used a good seed source, had great germination, got healthy seedlings and now have vigorous plants with lots of maturing tomatoes. It requires more time/attention, but it is so worth it.

Side note: my M-I-L showed off her small garden plot to me, and pointed out her pepper plants. I said, "are they sweet or hot?" She said, "they're green peppers--like you get at the store." Totally different approach to growing plants than mine: I picked out my variety of sweet pepper after reading about dozens of varieties and weighed out pros and cons for each type including size, taste, days to maturity, etc. And my m-I-l is growing "the kind at the store." Ha, ha.

[mbaker410]

Sounds like a little gardening competition between you and the M-I-L... lol j/k

I hear ya though on the reward of growing from seed. I have never done this and so far I have succeeded to get my tomatoes, peppers, cukes, basil, broccoli and jalepenos to be very healthy.

I have not gone the route of seed catalogs yet and bought my seeds from lowes with the exception of my black prince tomatoes. However I think I might want to do that next year or even soon to start my fall/winter crops.

Mike

[fabulousmindy]

I grew beefsteak from seed for the first time and am having better luck on my purchased plants...but I got the plants from burpee

still waiting for the first red one. I will fertilize today...