Update on my tiny beefsteak problem

[Fiishergurl]

My beefsteak plants which I planted in early February (I'm in Central Fl, Zone 9) had grown into monster plants... beautiful, lush, tons of blossoms, but hardly any fruit set compared to the amount of blossoms and the fruit that was there was tiny and seemed to have quit growing.

Here is a picture of a mature fruit from one of the beefsteaks. It weighed 2.7 ounces and the fruit was supposed to weigh between 6-10 ounces. The tomato was about the size of a tangerine... not exactly beefsteak size.


So after getting advice from people on here, I did 4 things... I pruned a third of the plant leaving only the main stems that had the most blooms. I started using an electric toothbrush on the blooms twice a day to pollinate them (even though we have howling winds and even though all the mid size plants and cherry tomato plants had tons of fruit). I started feeding the plants with Super Bloom which is high in "p". I fed it at half strength down the hatch once or twice a week. And I put up some yellow and blue sticky fly traps.

And guess what? I have beefsteak tomatoes coming out of my ears now and they are growing to normal size.

Here is a picture of one I picked today.... 9 ounces and some of the others coming along look like they will mature larger.



Here is a picture of one side of one of the plants. I counted about 30-40 tomatoes just on this side. Probably at least 60-70 or more total. There are two plants in this container and it's hard to differentiate one plant from the other so when I say 60-70 that's actually on 2 plants, not one.




Thanks to everyone for the help!

Ginny

[JamesL]

Nice job Ginny!

[kath]

Glad to see such an improvement- those plants look great! It's hard to believe that 1/3 was pruned away.

[Fiishergurl]

Thanks JamesL. I've gotten so much great advice from other tomato growers on here and a few other places. Amazing.

Kath - Yes, the plants are growing like crazy... actually in looking at the picture, I think I better go out and trim some of the inner leaves to make sure there is enough airflow. We don't have cages around them, just a bunch of haphazard stakes so it's been a struggle to keep all the branches up with all the fruit... but hey, that's a good problem to have. Maybe we will have cages or something by the time we start the fall plants. This is our first season growing and we had no idea the plants would get so huge. Too bad the rainy season and gloom and doom for the beautiful plants is just around the corner. But it has been fun growing them so far. We are in an RV park and have shared lots and lots of tomatoes with our neighbors. They admired them while they were growing and have enjoyed eating them too. It's been so much fun.

Ginny

[AKmark]

Looking great, nice job, now you get to enjoy.