I have tomato plants on an enclosed porch that have lots of blossoms but no tomatoes. They look like good healthy plants, growing very well; one is almost 5 feet tall. Am I doing something wrong? Help!
— Margaret
I can think of a couple of explanations.
The first is the heat. Tomato flowers won’t pollinize well if the temperature is too hot or too cold. The plant will bloom and bloom but little or no fruit is set. With the heat we’ve been having, that’s a pretty common problem in the valley.
There really isn’t anything for you to do unless you can change the weather — if you can, I REALLY want to talk to you! — except wait for slightly cooler weather. Shading your plants can help a bit but once we dip down into the low to mid 90s you should be OK.
This is a sporadic problem affecting some varieties more than others or even individuals of the same variety more than others.
The second reason would involve the space where the plant is growing. An enclosed porch has two potential problems.
The first is a lack of light. It may be bright in the porch, but it will amaze you how much more light the plant gets out in the yard without a roof over its head. There are lots of instances where the plant receives enough light to grow adequately, but it needs an extra level of light to successfully grow fruit.
The other problem is a lack of pollinators for your plants. Unlike most plants where the anthers (the male part of the flower that produces pollen) have pollen on the outside, the anthers of a tomato are a hollow tube with the pollen inside and it requires motion to shake the pollen loose from them.
Although tomatoes can pollinize themselves, without that shaking, the pollen isn’t released and no fruit can be set.
Out in the garden, bees of various kinds (especially bumblebees) do this, as does the movement from the wind. If your porch is enclosed, the bees are not able to forage through the flowers like they can outside and the plants are more protected from the wind.
The best solution is to move the plants outside, if that’s possible. If it isn’t, then move them right next to the biggest expanse of windows or screens you can to maximize the light.
You also will need to hand pollinize your plants. You can do this by carefully shaking the plants every day or two. The best way is to hold an electric toothbrush to the flowering stems so that the vibration is transferred to the flowers.
Why are my tomatoes all cracking around the area where the stem is?
What you’re seeing are called growth cracks. These are circular or radial cracks that occur near the top of the fruit where the stem attaches.
It happens when environmental conditions encourage rapid growth of the fruit during ripening. When the fruit reaches full size or near to it, it will start to undergo some physiological changes as it prepares to ripen. Besides the fruit starting to change color, one of these changes is that the skin will lose some of its natural elasticity.
If suddenly the plant is then stimulated to grow, the skin of the tomato cannot accommodate that expansion and cracks develop.
We most often see this when the plant is soaked abundantly after a period of dryness. The dryness can initiate those physiological changes leading to ripening.
The solution is to try to maintain more even moisture in the soil. You can try adjusting your watering to avoid watering “peaks and valleys,” but putting a mulch layer down on top of the soil around the plant is usually the easiest solution.
The layer should be 2–3 inches deep and consist of a coarse, fluffy organic material such as straw, coarse sawdust, chopped leaves or cedar mulch. The mulch layer also will help minimize problems with blossom end rot and weeds as well as make for healthier plants.
The mulch can be turned into the soil after things freeze down this fall (I’d add a bit of compost to it then as well) to enrich the soil.
One other thing that can help is to let your tomato plant sprawl over the ground. It takes up more room, which many people don’t have, but if you do, the plant itself will act sort of like the mulch layer does.
Whatever you decide to do, the bottom line is that tomatoes with growth cracks are still fine to eat. Just cut out the crack and enjoy them.
August 08, 2020 at 01:15PM
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Fruit won't set on your porch tomato plant? Here's why - The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
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