Oh, and I've fertilized them once with MicroLife 6-2-4. Has anyone heard of this stuff? Is it good? Could it cause them to bud early?

Plants that have been heavily stressed often kick into production mode. It's a survival instinct. I'd snip or pinch off the early blooms/buds now to reduce the stress and give them time to recover and stay in growth mode. In the mean time go easy on the water and VERY easy on the feeding too. It is just another stress source until they are well settled in.

Dave

Zaxsta,

According to your description, your plants are perfectly healthy and are not stressed at all (they are in 5 gallon pots). Please do NOT pinch the blossoms. It is completely normal for a foot tall tomato plant in a 5 gallon pot to show the first flower buds.

On a separate note, growing indeterminates in a 5 gallon pot can be tricky (a 10 gallon pot usually works better for large indeterminates). Your plants will require a lot of watering and some fertilizing during the peak growth season.

It is better to fertilize container tomatos with a dilute fertilizer solution. I have never used Microlife 6-2-4 but the NPK ratio seems right. I typically fertilize with a diluted hydroponic solution.

I have no idea if I can even get decent-sized Big Beef tomatoes off of a 15 inch plant (I doubt it).

I doubt it, too. I've grown a lot of them in-ground and once in a five-gallon bucket (that I had to water twice a day in July and August), and under both conditions they grew to eight feet and more. They were also very productive. I'd worry about their trying to produce fruit when they're only at 16% of their normal height!

And I'd suggest cutting back on the fertilizer, too. I have AlgoFlash for Tomatoes, and its proportions are 4-6-8 NPK, low on nitrogen. Do you know what else has good proportions for young tomatoes when it's time to fertilize them? That's Shultz's Plant Food Plus. And it's cheap! I think its proportions are 10-15-10, still low enough in nitrogen to not force the plants to become large and green and leafy with no fruit production. It also has a few micro-nutrients.

Yeah, I'd remove those buds, and give the plants a little more time to grow to actual maturity before reproducing!

Zaxsta - I assumed these are the same plants you have been talking about in your other "tomato problems" posts here, correct? The ones with leaf curl, yellowing, browning leaves, root bound, perhaps over-watered, not sufficiently hardened off, sun or wind burn, etc. If so, then you already know that they have been stressed and I stick by my points above.

If not those same plants then feel free to leave the buds in place as baltais suggests.

Dave

Dave -

I found that what was going on with the plants previously was a lack of hardening. They are doing just fine now. They yellowed a bit and two or three of the plants have one leaf with some burn marks on it, but they're fine. They were drooping and yellowing because I didn't leave them in the shade for the first few days. In short, I overreacted. None were root bound. That same one (Super Fantastic) still has leaf curl and I'm seriously considering pruning the buds on that one. Its just the lower branches, maybe 5 or 6 of the plant's 20 some odd leaves are curled. I just freaked out when they drooped and yellowed a touch while in direct sunlifht.

The Big Beef and Super Fantastic are the ones I'm concerned about. Super Fantastic has the problems mentioned above, and Big Beef is doing super well, but is just too small for tomatoes yet (I think). As I said, I only fertilized them once and only intended on fertilizing them once (well, maybe until a few months from now). Thanks for all the help, guys...sorry if I'm not giving enough details!

my tomatoes plant is 6 inches high, already has a flower on it and is in a 14 inch pot for now because it won't get any sun on my balcony. I guess that means I should go pinch off the flower.