Grannyjojo,

It likely is the grasshoppers. They stripped my plants completely bare in July 2010. However, it also could be tomato worms that already have pupated, so you can't see them now, or blister beetles, which also strip plants bare.

They may or may not put out new growth after you prune them back. You could try pruning them back by 50% and feeding them with a balanced water-soluable fertilizer. However, if they have been totally without foliage for too long, they will not have the stored energy to put out new growth.

As for new plants, the proper fall planting time for them has passed and any you plant now are highly unlikely to produce ripe fruit before the first freeze. With fall tomato plants, even when planted at the appropriate time, performance can be iffy depending on how early the autumn cool-down begins. Plants grown in autumn's progressively weaker sunlight, shorter daylength and cooler temps can take much longer to produce ripe fruit than spring-planted tomato plants that have more intense light and heat, and significantly longer daylength.

I get the best production from fall tomato plants that are transplanted into the ground the last week of June or first couple of weeks of July. Anything planted much later than that usually doesn't get big enough fast enough to produce much in the fall unless the fall weather is extra, extra warm and the onset of freezing weather is extra, extra late. The OSU-recommended planting dates for fall tomatoes are July 1st - July 15th, with the earlier date being more appropriate for northern OK and the later date being more appropriate for southern OK.

You could improve your chance of getting fall tomatoes if you put your plants in containers and can carry or drag them inside when colder weather arrives.

If you put a 6 to 8 week old tomato plant into the ground and it is very healthy and ready to bloom, you should be able to BEGIN harvesting your first ripe fruit about 70-90 days later, assuming you chose a variety with a fairly early DTM. Most of Oklahoma is roughly 90 days from its first hard freeze right now, so the chances of a typical tomato plant that is put into the ground this week producing much, if any, ripe fruit before then would be very slim.

You might or might not have enough green tomatoes on your plants by your first freeze to use to make fried green tomatoes, tomato relish or chow chow, etc.

If you had two-month-old tomato plants of the "Fourth of July" variety in your hands right now and ready to go into the ground, they'd likely give you a pretty good harvest. For me, they often produce the first ripe fruit in about 45-50 days from the time they bloom. With any other variety, if you can even find any in the stores, the chance of success is a lot less certain.

Dawn

Thanks for the info. I have enough leaves on several of the plants to give it a go on pruning back and see how it works. At least my sweet potatoes seem to be doing just fine and my okra just keeps on keeping on! God bless. "Every knee will bow and every tongue confess"