When will my current tomato plants be finished?

[Rfdillon]

Folks, I planted some plants in the first week of March, and others the first week in April. As our night time temps are now over 70 degrees, and daytime temps are approaching 90 degrees, will the flowers on these plants set fruit, or is it too hot and humid for any further fruit set?
Also, my neighbors tell me that by July 1, he thinks the current tomato plants will all be dead, due to disease or bugs. I have been regularly spraying them with Actinovate and Daconil. As of right now, the plants are healthy right now; I have pulled off a few yellow leaves here and there, but that is the only problem I have seen. It has rained here on and off daily for the last two weeks, and this coming week it is supposed to rain 4of the next five days.
Should I plan that most of tge plants will die within 6 weeks?
Will my current flowers set any more fruit?
Thanks in advance for your help!

[feldon30]

My schedule for tomatoes in Houston was:

• Large (10-14 inch tall) plants went in the ground the first week of March.
• Flowering and setting fruit from the last week of March through April and maybe first week of May if we had 2 consecutive cool nights and moderate days.
• First harvest in the first week of May and harvest through mid-July.
• Fruit quality begins to decline in late July as fruit is smaller, shows weather "checking" or concentric rings and russeting.
• Outbreaks of stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs suck the juice out of the tomatoes, causing them to be tough and corky. Spider mite outbreaks are severely stressing plants.
• Plants are hanging on by a thread by August 1st.

If you did not get significant fruitset already, then I would look at some factors:

• Were plants sufficiently sized and hardened off when planted?
• Were plants deeply transplanted so that part of the stem was buried?
• Were plants consistently watered?
• Was fertilizer sufficient? A good sign is moderate suckering (branches sprouting from the apex or "crotch" of existing branches).
• Was soil thoroughly mulched with non-chemical material like straw, non-dyed pine bark, shredded leaves, etc.?

Growing tomatoes in S.E. and Central Texas is tough!

[Rfdillon]

Thanks, Feldon. I do have a significant quantity, and good size of fruit on the plants, but I also have quite a few flowers still. Yes, the plants were a decent size, but we got the second batch of plants out a month later(first week of April) than the first batch,(in the first week of March).
Yes, they were planted deeply, and have been watered daily.
I fertilize weekly with Texas a Tomato food, and once or twice a month with Tomato tone. I also give them snacks of Epsom salt and Calcium Nitrate every week or two.All of them were planted in compost rich soil, mushroom compost, and mulched with composted oak leaves.

[wormgirl]

I'm really out of my region here, but I do hear a lot of southern growers talk about shade cloth if you are hoping to extend your spring season a bit? Hearing the comments of the neighbor would get me wanting to see if I could prove him wrong LOL.

I suppose if you noted days from flower to ripe fruit for those that have already ripened - (I'm assuming some have ripened) - could help you calculate whether fruit could ripen from current flowers. I do agree that if it's clear new flowers will not have time to ripen fruit, you might want to prune, to better ripen what's left.

[Rfdillon]

My one Early Girl is the only full-sized(non cherry or currant) tomato to have fully ripened fruit so far. A few others have started to turn, and our cherry, currant, and wild tomatoes have started to ripen, but that's all so far. I hope that I have time for all the current fruit to ripen, prior to July.
Of course, it would really help to know the timing of the decline of my current plants, because it is my understanding that I will need to have my fall plants well established and in the ground no later than July 25 in order for them to be able to mature prior to our first frost. I am planning to start my seeds for the fall tomatoes around the first of June.

[Worth1]

I think you will be surprised at how much longer your smaller fruited tomatoes will set fruit compared to the larger ones.

As for starting tomatoes for a fall garden you may very well see it to be a waste of time and space.
You just never no from one year to the next here.
I have never grown the currant tomatoes but wild cherry put on fruit almost all summer long.

When I lived south of Houston my cherry tomatoes did great way up into the summer also.
I grew them next to a shade tree in 5 gallon buckets.
Me nor the tomatoes new better and I just used yard soil in them.
They did great.

If I were you I wouldn't be making any funeral arrangements for your smaller tomatoes anything soon.

Worth

[Rfdillon]

Thanks, Worth! That's encouraging. I actually do have one Texas wild tomato in a bucket that I could move to a little shaded area. I still plan to start some seeds ~June 1 and we will have to see how many of my current plants expire to see how much space I will have to plan the new plants at the end of July.