Who's Experiencing Late Fruit Maturity?

[marc_groleau]

I'm in Northern RI right on the Mass border. We've had a record wet June and a record hot July. We're heading in to August now and although luckily, I have a fair amount of fruit, everything seems to be sitting there. Except for a few exceptions, the entire yield of my garden is sitting there waiting to ripen. Even my cherries are straggling by normal standards. I hope that disease doesn't get the plants before the fruit can be picked.
Anyone else having concerns?

[SharonRossy]

I think most of are concerned. I keep checking to see if anything is happening, but to no avail. Even Black Cherry is slower than molasses this year. Not sure how this is going to play itself out.

[emcd124]

My plants are about 5 feet tall, all have some fruit set, though two of the beefsteak plants only have one fist sized tomato and two dinky baby tomatoes just starting. I have yet to harvest so much as a cherry tomato out of the garden. Very frustrating!

[jennifer28]

I think it was the high temps that were keeping the toms from ripening. Now that its cooling off we should see some ripe fruit.

[jhp]

We have had some bad weather in Danbury, CT too. June was gray, rainy, and cold. Got my first ripe non-cherry tomato today, spudakee purple. I didn't even notice it had started to ripen and there it was! I wasn't even in the garden, spotted it from the yard! I remember this one was the first to set by a long shot, so will probably be a while before the others start ripening. Even my dwarfs haven't started to ripen. Seem to be holding steady at the same size forever. To be fair, I started a little bit late this year, but this seems disproportionately late. Come to think of it, everything in the garden is late and/or slow this year.

Jen

[Rideau Rambler]

By this time last year I was sick of cucumbers and cherry tomatoes. So far this season not a single cuke has started and barely any cherrys have formed. My tomato plants are all at least 4' tall and all have some, but not much, fruit set. The only fruit with any colour at all is beautiful Indigo Rose.

It seems like a bust because I have this big, green, lush garden from all the rain (not too much nitrogen as I've barely fertilized this year) yet the hot temps caused blossom drop and these cold days of constant rain aren't helping. The neighbours keep peeking and wondering when their handouts are coming, but I've got nothing for them, not even zucchini nor beets and certainly not tomatoes

However, I did get one Red Zebra grown by a friend. And although some may feel that it is a spitter with tough skin - as the first homegrown tomato of 2013 it was pure nirvana!

It seems depressing that I may be out there chopping off the leaders to prepare for frost before I've even harvested a single tomato!

[bower]

Wow, guys, I'm sorry to hear this. We are usually on the poor to miserable end of the northeastern coast weather stick, but shockingly we are having a very warm year again, after the "once in 150 years" phenomenal summer last year. I expected it to be really bad this summer (law of averages) so I went all out testing early and cold tolerant varieties, but instead it has been quite hot and pretty dry as well (law of Murphy). There is lots of ice up north (which makes summers cold) but the bergs are melting before they get this far south, the water temperature is so high.

We didn't have copious tomatoes in July as last year, but enough to keep the 'early reds' on the menu for four people (last year July was bowls of tomatoes and big bowls of tomato salad every day).

Here's a rundown of the state of indeterminates NOT early reds (and enuf with the early reds alredddy!!) for comparison, how early are they:

Ripening many (more than four) fruit at once now:
Pervaya Lyubov
Danko
Black Early
Black Russian
Oaxacan Jewel
Zolotoe Serdtse - has been ripening two at a time for weeks, now more.

Still ripening a few fruit or more or less one at a time:
zolotoy zapas- this is the best tasting fruit so far, and what a colour
Yaponskiy Krab
Petrusha Ogorodnik
Lotos

Still ripening first or second fruit
Eva Purple Ball
Indian Stripe
Zolotye Kupola
Rozoviy Flamingo

No ripening fruit yet
Pale Perfect Purple
PI120256

I hope you guys have better luck before the fall!

[SharonRossy]

That is amazing! I've two bloody butchers ripening, everything else is taking its sweet time, including the cherries. I do have cucumbers, which died on me last year, so that's a bonus, and eggplants are doing well. Tomatoes? Not so much! Some plants have lots of fruit and some are slow slow slow, which is why I started to top off.

[bower]

Sharon, if you've been having weather that promotes vegetative growth not reproductive growth, topping isn't a bad strategy. I have to deal with those conditions as a fact of life here and especially in my greenhouse early. Some varieties will not produce until they are topped, so I let them sucker as much as the space can stand and then top them leaving one leaf above a flower cluster. rapid fruit set afterwards.

[Rideau Rambler]

Thanks Bower, that is good to know! I think I'll look at obtaining some of your varieties for next year. And get busy topping off. Jaune Flammee and Isis Candy both have some blushing fruits tonight, that's exciting.

I did dine on a fine meal of bush beans tonight, and I have a volunteer groundcherry that is enormous.

Russian varieties, I'm off to Tania's website to research

[bower]

RideauRambler,

I finally understood the paradox, that some tomatoes grew better outdoors than inside my greenhouse, by reading this:
http://ag.arizona.edu/ceac/sites/ag....20tomatoes.pdf

I have a lot of solar mass in my greenhouse to moderate temperature extremes, which allows me to start earlier but pushes tomatoes towards vegetative rather than reproductive growth. My friends' greenhouse at the farm has more extreme day/night difference in temperature, and there's a big difference in plant size (much smaller) and fruit set (big and fast) early in the season. Since my vines are always huge and fast growing, it's not practical for me to prune to one leader and end up with a tomatostalk reaching to heaven. Topping gets the most stubborn plants to set.
I know it's not much consolation when you have no control over the key conditions, but it's as well to understand it. We have a pretty moderate but cool climate here overall, and get a lot of cloudy, foggy or rainy days instead of sun, unless we're lucky. Some varieties go wacko with the vegetative growth and set really poorly for me, and some others tolerate it pretty well and happily load those big vines with fruit.
Isis Candy is one that didn't do well inside, but produced much better outdoors, with lower relative humidity and more extreme day/night difference, in spite of cooler temperatures overall. Jaune Flamme did well in the greenhouse in a cold foggy year, late and long (probably 15 ft vines!) but setting lots of fruit into the fall - it set larger fruit outdoors though on little plants, which just goes to show.
Alaska is one of the early reds this year, lots of flowers from early on, but only set a couple of fruit until I hucked it outdoors, then it cheerfully set a bundle. Cold tolerance fine, vegetative conditions, not so much!

[SharonRossy]

I think the topping off makes sense. Anna Russian has been incredibly slow setting fruit. It grew tall, over 6 ft, not what you would call lush, because the hearts are really wimpy looking, at least AR is. It's now starting to set fruit within the last week or so and I found since I decided to remove some of the flower clusters its producing more fruit. I actually was going to yank one of them out because it just didn't look like anything was going to happen.
Sara, the Russian varieties will be later, in general, except possibly black from Tula which could be 65-80 days. This will be my first experience other than Japanese black trifele which I grew last year and that gave me fruit by the end of July and lots of tomatoes. I admit at the time, being unfamiliar with the blacks, it was hard for me to discern when it was ripe. It's year I'm growing black pear, which is supposed to be similar, but slow, which I am going to attribute to the crazy weather were are having. Just hoping the blacks will hold up to cold temps should they come. The other blacks I'm growing are BFT, Black Russian, black Krim and tims black ruffles so its going to be interesting. I'm putting some of your varieties on my list Bower cause if you can grow that many toms in Newfoundland, I should be able to get some going successfully here. Don't have a green house. Always a challenge!

[NarnianGarden]

I realize now it was error on my part to plant only Black krim this year (apart from the store bought cherry variety which has been producing ok). It seems to take forever. Several fruit have a nice size and seem to be all set - but not a slightest hue of pink yet! I know the variety was supposed to be even 90 days... but I assumed it meant from seed to fruit. Ah well, now I know better ... *blush*

Some of my plants seem to have been hit with some sort of virus / fungi, and I pray the fruits will become edible before the stems are dead...
Next year, different varieties. Maybe more hassle in the beginning, but at least I know some of the cherries will become edible in 60 days...

[PaulF]

Because of the spring planting conditions, the tomato crop was planted here in the third week of May. After consulting my journals for the last four years, the ripening process is exactly what the two week delay would be expected to show. What "normally" got harvested in the first week of August now looks like will be ripe next week or the week after. Amazing how a plant will stick to its days to ripe schedule no matter what I want them to do.

[taboule]

Hi, things are slow to ripen here too, and total volume is down from last year. I do however have some ripe tomatoes, mostly early types, but also a few Black Krim (first time grown this year.)

Currently downloading pics from my camera and will post in new thread -once i figure out how.