When I was out vibrating blooms, a couple of bees were in my way. ;)

Nature's pollinators were out in force. The wind was blowing nicely. For the blooms that could emit dry free flowing pollen, nature seemed to have things under control. I realize some of the blooms may not have been ready to open for business, and needed some more maturation time. The rest kind of fell into two categories: flower petals down, frazzled, but not collapsed. Last category was collapsed, some very damp. I suspect many of these are failed. Hard to tell.

"A 12 step program"? LOL :-)

Two questions - what is the age of these plants. It is still spring for another 6 weeks, still very early in the season so such focus may be premature and it could be perfectly normal for the plants to still be focused on growth, not blooming/fruiting. Second, what is your average humidity right now? Your location is well noted for its high humidity, right? That could be the whole problem, if there is one.

Dave

Ncrealestate:. For each Big Beef truss, which are 5 to 12 or so blooms (really varies), there are only, on average, 2 fruits. There are exceptions, mostly occurring earlier when it was cooler. It is a sad situation.

I put the big box store transplants in the bed/ground on 13 March. Fruiting started roughly 13 April. I agree it is still early. I probably have six weeks of pollination window left. Last night was awful, 72 degrees at 10:30 at night with near 90% humidity. Let's assume the problem is humidity and the current trend persists, I believe greater fruit set (there are plenty of blooms, most just fail, only two blooms per truss succeed on average) in my garden will only increase as a result of more vegetative growth. Each truss added through growth has potential to net two more tomatoes.

I think I need to fertilize and not limit fertilizing according to the idea of suppressing vegetative growth in favor of fruit setting. My plants need more vegetative growth in order to succeed at fruit set. They look hungry.

Here are the counts on the big beefs:

norm (average size): 8

tiny (small size): 4

Hercules (large): 18

Goliath(larger): 10

Godzilla(Kudzu class, knows no bounds, now has two cages): 13

Tomorrow, I will get "old" bloom counts (I won't mind some more quality time in my patch). Some are gone, but I can kind of tell where they were. It will be interesting to compare blooms per truss and tomatoes that resulted. I will also note the following:. Low(implying early growth during cooler temps /lower humidity), mid (implying later growth), top (implying growth during most recent warm/humid time).

Right now (10 PM) it is 73 and 91 % humidity. Mid-week forecast is looking good:. Hi/low for Wednesday is 81/59 64% humidity . Thursday is 72/53 46% humidity. Should I hold off on fertilizing?

"Right now (10 PM) it is 73 and 91 % humidity"

Bummer! Especially that humidity. Makes everything gummy. Not much you can do about it though except cross fingers and then make like a bumble bee whenever the humidity falls. I'd be real tempted to wait on the fertilizing until after Thursday anyway. JMO

Dave

Ok thanks.

Fruit set per Big Beef truss (not 100% reported, but representative)

Top of plant ------------------- to -------------> Bottom of plant

Norm: 1/5 2/7 2/6 2/5 2/5

Tiny:. 0/5 0/5 2/6 2/4

Hercules:. 0/6 1/6 2/6 0/6 2/5 2/5 1/6 3/6

Goliath:. 1/5 1/8 2/7. 2/6. 1/6. 3/6. 2/3. 4/7

Janice, are you using electric (battery) tooth brush to help pollination ?

Sey

When I am home during the day, which is about 30% of the time, I try to help. I tried out the electric toothbrush and could see free flowing pollen from some of the blooms. Some where too damp to flow. I am a crw cage shaker also.

Today the temps dropped dramatically. I suspect in retrospect when i compare fruiting with temps/humidity, there will be clear patterns.