Mid June, tomato flowers don't set fruit

[TexasJerseyMilker]

I have three kinds of squash- pattipan, yellow and zucchini (for more giant zucchinis). Started them in the house in Febuary. As usual. all female flowers opened. Finally a few male. I go out every morning and hand pollinate. A bumble bee was seen on the tomatos so I won't have to use the electric toothbrush vibrations anymore hopefully. Little green tomatoes are on all varieties.

Traveler, I am NOT paying $4 for a tomato plant. Thats when I started varieties in the house. Last year I had so many tomatos in papper cups I filled a shopping cart and gave them away in front of walmart. "you want an earlygirl? Here have a betterboy to go with it. The cart was empty within minutes.

I waited until recently to plant Kentucy wonder green beans because the soil was too cold so they are not climbing yet. The spinach crop bolted and the mustard greens too so I processed 10 lbs of mustart greens cooked southern style and froze them. Swiss chars is still growing and producing. Cucumber vines are starting to climb and flower. Pea are producing. Lettuce too. It is so fine to go outside with a basket and gome back in with dinner.

Last winter we had a good time feeding dog food to the jays on the back porch rail. Within one day they found and took every single strawberry from the strawberry patch so I netted it. I see a long blue tail sticking out from a nest high in an apple tree.

 

[4hfarms]

We started tomatoes in the basement in the end of January from last year's seeds. Have 3 tomatoes so far from 15 plants that made it to planting. The 2 rows of potatoes are nice plants so far....Only 3 brussel sprouts made it past the chickens. Cabbage is nice to but only 2 left growing. Grapes were great until the heat started. Our garden didn't produce last year from the heat. This year we expected the heat and plan to plant later.

 

[Logan52]

The growing season here has been cool but with enough warm nights to set fruit and grow garden crops. In fact, I have rarely seen the garden look better up until yesterday. It had been dry but regular light rains of 1/4 to 1/2 inch kept stuff growing. This also kept the soil in good tilth and made it easy to keep weeds under control. Last evening we had 45 mph winds and almost 3 inches of rain in a severe thunderstorm. It flattened some beautiful Bodacious sweet corn and pushed the tomatoes over.
I grow the old Brandywine and Oxheart open pollinated tomatoes for taste. They have a short period of fruiting and are prone to disease. For that reason I also grow the Early Girl and Better Boy types.
They look good but are running a little late this year.
Gardening is frustrating and something usually does not go as you would like it to. Still, it is an itch I can't get out of my system.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

After years of struggling to support indeterminant tomato vines with contraptions, clips, strings, etc. I made tomato cages out of 8' sections of field fence made into 4' tall cylinders.

 

[greybeard]

After years of struggling to support indeterminant tomato vines with contraptions, clips, strings, etc. I made tomato cages out of 8' sections of field fence made into 4' tall cylinders.

The best ones I ever made were from 5' tall concrete galvanized remesh. It was dirt cheap around 2011 and cheaper to buy a whole roll than to have them cut it to length. I gave 'em all away when I moved. I absolutely hate those dinky cone shaped ones garden places sell for aroiund $10 each nowadays, but since I only have 6 plants, that's what I ended up doing.

 

[Travlr]

When I was in high school I raised beef steak tomatoes that were so big that one slice would overhang a sandwich... and they were good! Six inches across, easy. They don't grow that big anymore, not even close. I'd like to have some seed from back then to see if it would produce the big tomatoes I remember growing alongside the newer seed.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

Here is a great prank involving tomatos by CJ John from the Watermellon Raids we have known thread

Sep 28, 2022
On Halloween --- some friends of mine knew of a tomato patch where the tomatoes were all ready rotten so we thought we would grab some. As we were collecting rotten tomatoes to throw at our friends, the single cop in town came rolling down the street and had his spotlight on, shining out over the "patch". Needless to say, all of us "tomato pickers" had to "hug the ground" to not be seen. WE WERE A MESS. So the policeman yelled--- "I can see you come out of there." At this point my friend beside me heaves a tomato at him which hits the car with a thump and I realize I could be in DEEP TROUBLE so I jump up and "hot foot it" away from the cop and toward the adjacent corn field. And in the light of the SPOT LIGHT --- I see about 20 young kids all headed for the corn field also!
I had NO IDEA that there were that many kids in the patch grabbing rotten tomatoes!

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

Well, I finally got to taste some of these 'hairloom' tomatos. Granted it has been a weird weather year.

The Cherokee Purples finally ripened a few small distorted brownish tomatos. The flavor was mildly sweetish/ bland. No Early Girls yet. They are certainly not early although I started those and all the hairlooms in the house in February. Usually I get EarlyGirls in second week of June, and in Texas in May.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

Latest update on my 'hairloom' tomato experiment in Oregon. It is mid August.

The "Lemon Boy" hairlooms turned out to be some kind of red paste plum tomato. Totally bland, feeding them to the chickens. Amazon gave my $ back for the seeds.
Soldaki, Polish hairloom, have good flavor but smallish tomatos but bigger than cherry.
Great White hairloom. Totally sour red small tomatos, got my money back but it was still a waste of time and effort.
Earlygirl grown from seed. My fault for falling for this online seed sale as EG are a hybrid and cannot be grown from seed. NOTHING like EG and they quit floweing which EG never does. At least I can make sauce.

Seltz, a variety bred for Oregon short season production, flavor pretty good, fruits small, does not continue to flower.

Cherokee Purple. It is an ugly deformed tomato but the taste is incredible, Very tomatoy, bright and sweet. However, stopped flowering in July.

From now on I am buying BonnieBell Early Girl seedings from Walmart. $4 a plant-- Heck keep them going for the next year crop y rooting cuttings of suckers. I'll grow more Cherokee purple.

This week I made the many lbs of frozen of last years EG into marinar sauce and froze it.

Also, Kentucy Wonder green beans I picked 10 lbs yesterday, blanched then froze. So they will produce another heavy crop because they think they did not create any beans.

The major thing I am doing this year is putting in a home vinyard of muscat varieties of table grapes. I grew these from dormant cuttings. All the grapes you can buy in the store these days taste exactly the same. Not like these honey flowery Muscat grapes your mom brought home from the store when we were kids.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

I agree with everything you say about Cherokee purple. Deformed...definitely. But are large tomatoes. I lived in Corvallis for 3 years. Your summers aren't so different from where I currently am. I had jetstar tomatoes this year. Good producer, meaty, good flavor, not as large as Cherokee, but much prettier. I'd say about the prettiest tomatoes I've seen. Slightly more round than typical tomato look. Very uniform. Also had Parkers Wopper. You need a cherry picker......er, tomato picker to reach the tops of these! 11+ feet tall! Very large tomatoes, good flavor, medium yeild in relation to size, so still a lot of tomatoes per plant.

 

[farmerjan]

Heirloom tomatoes can vary greatly .... Cherokee purple are okay... I prefer Brandywines...red, yellow and a "black"...
Good old fashioned Beefsteak is an heirloom....
We grow alot of Mr Stripey and German Johnson here... good flavor.. red and yellow striped...
I grew Belgian Giants.... thought I was getting a pink/red tomato.... these are yellow... and very meaty and mild. Found references to both the Giant yellow belgium and the red/pink giant belgium
Hillbilly is very popular here also... WV origins I believe yellow, pink, red striped...
Mortgage Lifter are a real good old fashioned red tomato.
I love yellow pear and red pear for "cherry sized tomatoes" ...

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]