Greenthumbintraining- You won't see obvious fruiting bodies along with the flowers on tomato plants. They come later. The tomato plant is self-pollinating so if you give the plants a little shake when it's not wet out the pollen will fall to where it'll work. Some people thump the individual flowers gently to get the pollen airborn. Kinda neat, huh?

I just gave all my container toms a good flicking and gently shook the pots. i hope i start seeing some tomatoes soon!! tons of blooms for a week and a half now but no fruit.

GTIT

If a tomato blossom is pollinated, soon you'll see a tiny pea-sized green tomato right where the center of the blossom was. Most of the time, the blossom will stay attached to the brand new fruit as it grows larger and fall off after a couple of days or longer. Since tomatoes are self-pollinating, there aren't male and female blossoms with recognizable ovules at the base of the female flower.

My tomatoes have been blossoming off and on for more than a week, but so far, no fruit has set. I think the nights have been too cool to encourage good pollen production, in the low and mid-50s.

When you see fruit is the only way to truly tell on a tomato plant. The fruit grows out from where the flower was and sometimes the flowers will stay on the bottom of the fruit. Oh, and no tomatoes don't develop bulges. The bulges occur on female blossoms. The bulge is actually the ovary containing unfertilized eggs.

BTW, back to your tomato question, if the stem just behind the sepals (the green just behind the flower) turns yellow then pollination did not occur and the blossom will drop. Otherwise, for the most part you can assume pollination did occur and a fruit will form. Unfortunately the yellowing doesn't always happen and will only give you about a day warning before the blossom drops.

BTW, tomatoes are self furtile, but not truly self pollinating (read my full comments in the Brandywine persnickety thread) for more information).

Good luck.

Randy

Hi,

The flowers on my plants are growing for a while then falling off leaving nothing behind but the stem. Ive grown tomatoes before and know that the flower should eventually dry up and leave a tiny tomato that grows up. My question is why are my flowers just falling off instead of making tomatoes?

nevermind. I found a answer. Thanks!

Sure enough, I go out there yesterday to find itty bitty little green pearls on my cherry tomato plant, how exciting! I can't wait to see what all the rave is about with homegrown tomatoes.

I asked a similar question on "the site that may not be named" and was supplied a link that I found helpful.

Terry Light
Oak Hill, Virginia

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Anatomy - Flowers and Fruit