Tomato blossom but no fru

[madgardener]

you can also sprinkle 2-3 tablespoons of the granular Epsom Salts into each planting hole and mix with the soil when you plant the little buggers. I also plant them up to their leaves burying the stem so they'll form a stronger root system to support the vines. Yes, you're right. They need magnesium and drop their blossoms if they don't have enough. And too much nitrogen will make beautiful leaves but no fruit. Also, temperatures over

84o F will prevent the setting of fruit, unless you have specific heat tolerant varieties... madgardener

[David Ross]

Night-time temperatures below 50F will also cause a failure of tomato flowers to form fruit. This failure can be mitigated with certain plant hormone sprays.

The failure caused by daytime temperatures being too high cannot be similarly corrected. The only mitigation for high temperatures might be shade cloth and misting, to keep the temperatures from getting too high.

[B & J]

Misting increases blight problems IMHO and shade cloth is a bit pricey for many home gardeners. For high temperatures I tried a variety called 'Sun Leaper' last year that produced a huge quantity of large, smooth tomatoes that were wonderful for canning when temperatures were really warm. They didn't have as good as flavor as many others, but they produced after the others quit and certainly tasted better than the pale, plastic blobs one finds in stores.

John

[THURSTON ACKERMAN]

FamilyNet Newsgate

AS>Had a terrible year with tomatoes. (Last year was marvelous.) AS>They put out blossoms galore, but never turned into tomatoes. AS>Friend suggested I get a spray to "fix" the blossoms. AS>I did, but no luck.

AS>The one plant, near the compost bin, is still valiantly blossoming AS>but no tomatoes.

AS>Any suggestions?

PBS gardener, Tom Cottle suggested many years ago to add about a tablespoon of upson salts to ones' gallon of liquid fertilizer when tomatoes blossom. Works for me here in New England (about

4th of July 8-).

I tried the hormones but it didn't seem to help.

Ciao, Ack.