Sharon,

I don't know what happened with Katie's tumbling toms. It could be a heat/humidity-related issue, but at my house, it was a grasshopper issue.

At our house, the grasshoppers began eating the Tumbling Tom's leaves and flowers in late July stripping the plants down to bare stems. I pruned back the bare stems by about 50%, fed the plants and kept them well-watered and some of them rebounded and grew new foliage. They then began producing again in early September, so I had results somewhat similar to Katie's but mine was because the hoppers ate all the leaves. (We could say this variety is the one preferred most by grasshoppers because they ate all of them before they moved on to a different variety.) Before the hoppers stripped them of flowers and foliage, though, we had hundreds of tomatoes from each plant from late May or early June through mid- to late-July. The ones that rebounded from the loss of foliage were not nearly as productive afterwards as they had been before, but there was a continual issue with grasshoppers eating them until mid-October's cold nights wiped out a lot of the grasshoppers.

I have a Tumbling Tom Yellow in a pot in the garage and it is flowering and setting fruit now.

So, assuming Katie's still had leaves, I suspect it either was the high heat/high humidity or the spider mites damaged them too much and they lacked the vigor to produce or it could have been a combination of both. As you know, high heat and/or high humidity can affect pollenation and fertilization of tomatoes. Normally, small-fruited tomato varieties are not impacted by high heat/high humidity as much as large-fruited ones, but I've seen it happen to some small-fruited varieties before, though not often. If her plants flowered and then dropped the flowers without fruit forming, that would indicate more of a pollination issue. If they weren't even forming flowers, it could be more of a vigor issue related to the spider mites damaging the plants.

Maybe it just was the weird weather year because a lot of folks had all kinds of tomato problems in 2010 and I think it was almost completely weather-related.

If the Tumbling Toms stall in the mid-summer heat in 2011, then I'll feel fairly certain it is a variety that is very sensitive to high heat/high humidity. It is hard to judge a "new" variety based on one year's performance, but I did feel like mine had slowed down production some in July even before the hoppers devoured the plants.

Dawn

I will probably jinx myself into having lots of problems next year, but I really didn't have many. Expecting the worst because a lot of folks DID have problems, I was really surprised not to have bug and/or grasshopper problems on the tomatoes, altho I did have mine and the neighbors' share of grasshoppers in general. Same thing with stink bugs. I found one leaf-footed bug, a few hornworms that got moved to Datura, and some beet armyworms in the beginning. Also had a few fruitworm issues, but nothing major. Had some catfacing, but very little. First 2 tomatoes of the year had BER, but none after that.

What I didn't have problems with were: powdery mildew, spider mites, white fly, cracking (none), cucumber beetles (stayed over in the rest of the garden).

Did have some pollination issues in the heat and humidity, but I kept giving the plants a shake and had some production, but things definitely slowed down until mid-September. I think I could have had a lot more problems due to the weather, but didn't. I was very shocked actually. Probably chock it up to beginner's luck.

How did your other tomatoes do, Shannon? I thought about putting a Tumbling Tom in a basket next year.

Susan