tomatoes - flowers, no fruit

I'm in Texas and planted some tomatoes from the nursery about a month ago for a fall garden. They have settled in nicely, have no sign of disease, are growing in size (about 2' tall now) and have a zillion flowers. But I'm seeing no sign of any actual tomatoes and those flowers have been sitting there awhile.

We've had hot weather (mid-high 90s, sometimes 100) so I'm suspecting that's the issue. They've been watered well and I used an organic fertilizer.

But now I'm wondering -- what next? What happens next to the tomato plants, and is there something I should be doing. I'm hoping I will still get tomatoes this fall, but one thing I read said that if the flowers wither and don't produce, the plant is just plain "done." I hope that's not the case.

Thanks!

It seems to me that my young plants often do that. Just wait them out & don't over fertilize.

Darn, I just put some fertilizer out a couple days ago. I have a Burpee meter and the reading said that it was a little low in nutrients. So I'll be sure and not add any more! And I'll try to be a little patient. Thanks.
Lise

It probably has to do with the high temps. If they're blooming they will eventually set fruit. Your should be OK with the fertilizer, if the Nitrogen is too high they won't bloom, they'll just have beautiful foliage. You may try gently shaking the cages to encourage pollination.

Also, there maybe little tomatoes in there that you don't see. The temps are supposed to drop this coming week I bet that will help the tomatoes set.

Sometimes, a healthy tomato plant flowers, its blossoms drop, and no fruit develops. This is called “blossom drop.” It's a result of plant stress or poor pollination. There are at least 5 causes of blossom drop. Extreme temperatures can definitely be a factor along with poor pollination, stress, improper fertilizing, and believe it or not -- too many blossoms!
Since you're doing well with watering and fertilizing, and you can't control the weather, you can help things along by gently shaking plants to promote pollination.
Here's a link that can help more:
http://www.tomatodirt.com/blossom-drop.html
Good luck!

Thanks for the encouragement, 1lisac. Still no fruit but I'm hoping. Temps haven't dipped all that much yet, but it's a "little" cooler. I'll hold a good thought. I thought I was following the county extension chart for planting my tomatoes at the right time, but I think now that the dates were meant for seeds, whereas I put in transplants, which means I was several weeks too early. But since I was also told that my fully grown spring tomato plants might kick in again for fall production and they were grown plants, I thought it would be okay for the transplants to already be in the ground. Color me confused!

I appreciate the info and link KathyWid. I did shake the plants gently, but the flowers have been sitting out there so long, I doubt if my timing was helpful. And I might have thought that I had too many blossoms, because I did have a bunch, but last week's rain storm weeded out a bunch of them so that's no longer a problem if it ever was. Sigh. Nine plants and I wonder if I'm going to get a single tomato.

And I still have a question. Is there just one chance? All the blossoms drop and then the tomato quits? Or will it produce another set when the weather cools. The local grocery store is selling transplants (with no blossoms ) and I'm wondering if I should pick up a couple of those.

I t depends on the type of tomatoe you ha ve planted. Some bloom all season, others will bloom only a couple times.

Lise-I posted a response this AM but it got lost in cyber space. Anyway, I really think your problem is temp related, and the humidity doesn't help either. I have had tomatoes all summer long, until now, even tho some have set. However, it got hot at the beginning of August so pollunation slowed down.
It might be too late to put new plants in. When do you get your first freeze/frost? I still have plants from spring and some that I direct sowed in June, this recent rain has really made them grow and they are blooming like crazy, just since that 13" of rain. As long as your plants are blooming and they are getting a breeze (or you are shaking them) I really think you will get tomatoes set when it cools down.
What types are you growing?

Lise-any tomatoes set yet? My plants have gone crazy since the rain. They have more then doubled in size and have blooms everywhere. Now I just hope they have time to ripen before it freezes. That's TX fighting the heat then the cold. I have a few huge tomato plants that I have yet to pick one tomato off of, they just started to bloom and now have fruit set. The only way I will know what kind of tomatoes they are is by the fruit so they have to get ripe before it gets cold! I'll be off to Goodwill to get sleepingbags to cover them to help prolong the season.

I am having the same problem with my fall tomatoes. It is the hot temps. It is to hot to pollinate.

Sorry to be slow in replying. We've been on vacation for the last ten days, so I have no idea how my tomatoes are doing! I've left them in the charge of my son and he says he hasn't had to water much because there's been some rain. He also said temps have cooled down a bit, so I'm hoping there will be something to look at when I get back in town in a couple of days.

I planted mostly Heat Wave tomatoes, plus a Sweet 100 and a yellow pear of some sort. I also have a few older plants from this spring but I don't remember what they are. (I'm thinking Early girl and Celebrity but not sure).

I've read a bit online about the Heat Wave and the comments seem to be mostly that folks have been unimpressed, despite the claims that they are supposedly better at setting fruit in hotter temps than other varieties.

Well, we'll see!

I'm suddenly reminded of years ago when my BIL planted tomatoes and was obsessively watching for signs of tomatoes. For a prank, I bought big red tomatoes and used needle and thread and hung several on his tomato plants. If I get no maters this year, I'll blame it on karma, lol.

I forgot to add, 1lisac, that I'm glad to hear that your tomatoes are now going great guns! Thanks for asking about mine, and when I get back home, I'll report what I find.

OMG-If you had mentioned what u had done to your BIL this whole thread could have been avoided (teasing) LOL I can't believe u went to that much work, needle and thread.
I think we have found the answer Payback is a B@*#@.
Lisa

LOL, 1lisac.

I'm lucky BIL lives nowhere around me these days, aren't I, or he'd have the perfect chance to play the same trick on me. (I assure you he isn't a serious gardener and he thought it was hilarious. I wouldn't have done it otherwise. This is a family of pranksters).

Anyway, the Tomato Gods are starting to smile in my direction-- we came home from vacation yesterday to tomatoes! Hooray for rain and cooler temps and thank you (all!) for holding my hand while I waited.

This morning I picked one ripe cherry tomato that I must have missed seeing -- it was from a pretty big vine I grew this spring and then transplanted from pot to raised bed and tied to a trellis along our back fence.

And, I counted 29 other little ones on other plants. I was thinking they were Heatwaves but in checking notes, which I should have done earlier, it's "Small Fry" cherries coming on. I only have one Heatwave plant and it's doing the worst of any of my plants -- but it's also the only one I didn't cage or trellis, so it kind of got lost under things.

Besides the tomatoes, the rain has prompted a little more action in other parts of the garden too. Things are definitely looking up.

Great-I'm glad you are getting maters. Like I posted above there are probably little ones hiding in there.

It seems that a plant will not produce unless it gets rain. I ha ve watered my garden all summer. Here where I am, it only rained once. So I had a hard time with my garden. Its very frustrating. I now understand how important it is to have an irrigation system. My mother used to say, that she watered her garden & that would just keep her garden alive. So if you want fruit, the rain is needed. I am still hoping for rain for my fall garden.

I'll cross my fingers for you, behillman.

My tomatoes are finally getting a bit in gear although I may not get any big tomatoes this year and have to settle for Small Fry and Sweet 100s. Now I'm getting concerned because the tops of the plants are getting very curly (cupping). Jury's still out on whether it could be a virus (looks like Tobacco Mosaic Virus on google images and I've had plenty of white flies in spite of spraying) or possibly a reaction to sudden rain and cooler temps. We'll see!

LiseP, I hope you get some tomatoes! Here in Ga we had so many weeks with temps in the 90's (many high 90's) that most of my tomato plants just quit bearing fruit.

The only one out of 8 different varieties that kept producing was Flamme'. I read somewhere that Flamme' was on a list that Carolyn (THE tomato expert, sorry I don't remember her last name) recommended. It is an heirloom with small, teardrop shaped, yellow-orange fruit that were wonderful.

Lise-Curly top virus?

My fall tomatoes have finally started setting fruit. Only problem is we'll get a frost before they are big enough to get ripe.

we had a heatwave and my fall tomatoes took a break. Along with my spring romas that are still going strong. Its nice and overcast today so hopefully my fall tomatoes will have a chance to get bigger and ripen soon.

Jim-when do you usually get your first frost? I will go to any extreme to protect my plants from freezing.
Prettymess-when I saw the temps you had in Ca I think calling it a heatwave is an understatement. You got unbelievable hot there, weren't some records broken?

Our weather is super crazy, 1lisac. Last year we didn't get a killing frost until just before Christmas. One year we had three weeks of 15 degree weather in October. I'm predicting a long cold winter for our area. Usually one extreme follows another down here. We had the hottest summer on record.

Jim-thats so strange we didn't even hit 100 until the beginning of August. Its 54* out there now which is cool for this time of year.

1lisec, you might be right, and I think Curly Top Virus is the same or a close cousin of TMV - apparently there are many variants (?).

My plants so far healthier than the online photos of the disease, although a couple have been similar. Maybe I'm just at the early stage though. And, there was some evidence of a possible iron defiency or possibly another nutrient, just judging from pics. I gave them a foliar spray this morning. Since all of the plants seem to have it, whatever it is, no harm in just letting them be, I guess. It can't spread any more than it has, if it's a virus. Tomatoes keep popping - lost count at 40 today. The largest one does look a little mottled/mosaicl green -- possibly another clue leading to TMV/curly top. I'm hoping the fruit will be all right.

Meanwhile we got a high water bill today - sigh. Really hoping for some good tomatoes to keep skeptical hubby's mood good. (I may end up hanging some red hothouse 'maters on my OWN bushes). I keep telling him that he's subsidizing a HOBBY (like oil painting) and also, I'm still in the learning stages. I'm not claiming it's a frugal hobby to lower our grocery bills at this point, although I hope that will be the case sometime.

Is there any chance the plants could have gotten hit with herbicide over spray or drift?
Could you post pictures?

We hit 105 for about 15 straight days. Then it cooled dow to 101. Our temps are nice now with lows of 42 and in the 80's during the day. Just extremely dry. No rain in the last 2 months.

1lisac - we got a heat wave in northern california but it was record breaking in southern california. I am glad I don't live down there! My garden couldn't handle it!

A friend of mine took a picture of the thermometer in his car when he was on the 10 near Crenshaw at 12:30 pm and it was 120*. Nobody can handle that heat.

1lisac,
I'll try to post pics. I just can't find the cord for uploading just now.

The more I think about it, the more I think it's a virus. One plant - a yellow pear - has looked bushy/curly/"fern-like" since it was small (just keeps getting taller and bushier and with no fruit set), but I assumed all along that the foliage looked different because it was a different variety. But now the tops of all the other tomatoes look just like that one.

On a brighter note, we enjoyed a couple red cherry tomatoes this morning and other veggies are coming along okay. Also discovered our water softener has had a major leak (1 gallon every 2 minutes!). That's not good news, but we got it fixed and I'm happy that the high water bill was probably not due to my little garden.

1lisac, I finally got a picture ready for you. Note the normal looking leaves on the bottom of the plant versus how the top looks. Oh, and you asked about herbicide drift being a possibility but I don't think it's been exposed to anything like that.

I have no idea, the plants look health except for the leaf shape. have you tried posting on the tomato forum? Somebody over there should know.

Thanks for that idea. I'd forgotten that there is a forum just for tomatoes. I'll check.

Back again. I read heaps over at the Tomato Forum. The same possibilities cropped up but things didn't really get narrowed down. But then I did some more googling and used "tomato yellow edges" as a search term, to focus on the yellow edges of the leaves rather than just the curly aspect, and I came up with a page for a variant on the yellow leaf curly top virus that looks like a very good match to mine.
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/NF/NFREC100.pdf

I think at this point I will assume that that's what I've got, or a very close cousin, and I believe in my case it started with a yellow pear tomato and gradually traveled (via whitefly) to all the other plants. Since they've all got it, and I have upwards of 50 tomatoes out there already just waiting to redden, I'll just leave all the plants and not worry about it. The tomatoes already there should be fine, I just won't get many (or any, perhaps).

Lessons learned:
1. Don't assume that "funny-looking leaves" are just because it's a different variety.
2. Do research sooner.
3. Plant with more space between tomatoes.
4. Spray more aggressively for white fly (and beet leafhopper, for that matter).
5. Maybe don't plant yellow pear tomatoes at all, or plant far away from other plants. One comment I did read on the Tomato Forum was someone who also observed that the yellow and red pears were affected first.

Thanks for doing the research. I can happily say that the pictures on that link do not look familiar to me, but I'm sorry they look familiar to you.

Just a happy update, that 60 days after my first lament at no tomatoes, and 30 days after every plant seemed hit with curly-leaf virus junk -- I'm picking a handful of ripe cherry tomatoes every day, and all of my plants are loaded with green tomatoes! I'm hoping I can keep them going and ripening before the weather gets too cold, but so far, so good.

And when I say they are producing, I mean the Heatwaves (which have been doing the best all along), but also the old transplanted vines that have looked barren until this past week; and even the yellow pear that seemed to be at the root of the curly virus.

If gardening doesn't teach you patience and optimism in the face of what looks like defeat, well I don't know what does. (Of course, I still have mostly GREEN tomatoes so I guess that means yet a little more patience and optimism!

Good luck Lisa. I sat out four fall tomatoes but they wouldn't put on fruit because of the heat. Caught a few days in the low 90's and they loaded up. Trying to keep the frost off with hopes of getting a few.

I just got in from the garden. I covered every plant in there. We are under a freeze warning. It got down to 34* last night, and they said it would be warmer tonight. Then when I watched the news this evening they said it would be colder then last night. Now I'm sure it won't freeze because I covered everything up!

1lisac, well you just keep covering things up, if it keeps the freezing temps away. Then I won't have to! LOL.

I did throw some sheets on the garden bed a few nights ago, probably the same night you did.

I kept the sheet, tarps and sleeping bags on for 2 nights. However, the stuff I didn't cover didn't freeze but I wasn't taking any chances.

I will keep covering them until it gets too cold to help, or it rains. Eventually, it just isn't worth it.