Flowers on tomato plants died...

[caelestis]

First time container gardening, 3 different kinds of heirloom tomatoes. All three started out great and began forming fruit from the very first flowers. But after starting 3 or 4 fruits per plant, the rest of the flowers died and dried up. I'm guessing they weren't pollinated. My questions are:

1) Should I remove the dead flowers in hopes that the plants will bloom again? (it works with roses...)
2) Is it too late in the season for the plants to start more fruit?
3) What can I do to prevent this from happening next year?

Kathy
just downwind of Detroit
zone 6b(I think)

[mjc]

You've got plenty of time...so just hold on, they will flower again.

If you had temps spike into the 90s then that is the most likely reason they didn't get pollinated.

[RandyG]

Some heirloom varieties are prone to setting only a few early fruit and then putting all of their energy into development of these fruit and not setting any more for a while. Later on, especially after you harvest the first fruit, they will begin forming flowers strong enough to resume setting fruit. This pattern is especially true of the very large fruited heirlooms that have the fasciated fruit trait. I would not remove the dead flowers, whether you get ripe fruit from the later set will depend on whether your season is long enough. For future years, you may want to grow some smaller fruited, non-fasciated types that have more consistent setting ability.

[Timmah!]

Originally Posted by RandyG

Some heirloom varieties are prone to setting only a few early fruit and then putting all of their energy into development of these fruit and not setting any more for a while. Later on, especially after you harvest the first fruit, they will begin forming flowers strong enough to resume setting fruit.

In the case of these varieties, would it behoove one to forgo these early fruit, inciting the plant to progress to the next set earlier?

[amideutch]

I have the same thing happening on my plants, some more and some less. Reason, had temps in the mid 90's for the first 2 1/2 weeks this month. The plants will keep on flowering and once the conditions are right your plants will began setting fruit. Mine have already started. I'm going to start a thread on which varieties I'm growing this year that had the best fruit set during the heatwave. Ami

[ubergoober]

I blame the weather...extreme heat lately and I have had some blossoms drop as well.

[caelestis]

Yep, it was up in the 90s here several times in late June and July. I did remove some of the dead, dried out flowers from some of the plants, but not all of them.

I'm looking forward to that thread on which varieties can handle heat. This container gardening experiment worked just well enough that we plan to try it again next year. This year we chose our tomato plants at a gardening society plant sale based mostly on what was left by the time we got there. It would be nice to have a plan ready in advance for next year!

[Timmah!]

"This year we chose our tomato plants at a gardening society plant sale based mostly on what was left by the time we got there."

That's a positive interpretation of that situation; it put a smile on my face & made me LOL.