Hi Hummersteve! I don't live in your zone, but I am a newbie to gardening and planted a brandywine. It took FOREVER!! I was considering pulling it out, but have been reading this site alot lately and decided to give it a chance. All of my other plants are covered in fruit, and I now have about 4 on my brandywine. They have all set within the last 2-3 weeks. I see some more blooms that look like they will set as well.

Good luck, as I am eager to see what someone from your area writes in.
Jacci

First time growing brandywine for me as well. My brandywine also took forever to set fruit, but has maybe 10 on it now

My two Red Brandywines looked kind of yellow earlier in the year, probably due to the cold weather, but are deep green now and almost the size of my other varieties. But they are just starting to set some fruit, whereas the others have big fruit clusters. The earliest were Stupice and Aunt Ruby's German Green. Stupice is always a winner in bad weather.

Bob B.

I planted Brandywine,Rose and Sungold in early May. Much to my surprise the Brandywine has two very small tomatoes.

I too planted my brandywine in early may and as of yet I cannot see even the tiniest fruitset. I will wait for it has a good number of blooms.

Hi,
You are all scaring me,it's my first yr as well.Being in up-state NY,i'm a few weeks behind most here.I have a total of 4 Brandy's,2 of them almost 2ft tall now.I just looked today and have clusters of buds and 2 flowers.I can only dream of having fruitset by June 1st.
My brandy's are OTV and i can't wait for them to go on a BLT! Weather,(so far) has been perfect here. Let's all keep a positive attitude and a sharp knife !

Brandywine has always been a good performer for me and has been my mainstay for 8-9 yrs but ...
This is my first year with "flower thumping" and me thinks I'm in trouble. Pic is of one plant, in one cage ... and I have 70 more like it!
Out of zone but hopefully gives hope.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Hi, I'm probably close zone wise to you............also my first year growing Brandywine. Planted in early May, plant looks healthy, has flowers, but no fruit set here either. Flowers just shrivel up. I know Brandywine has a rep for taking a long time, but patience is hard to come by when you're waiting......and hoping.......and anticipating that first taste of your own home grown 'maters. Hope you have some other varieties planted! I do, but always heard Brandywine was one of the tastiest. To my knowledge, I've never tried one before, so am REALLY looking forward to it.

I gently shake the plant every time I walk by it now, if nothing else to make me feel better :)

My Brandywine blossoms just shrivel and drop off, too. It seems that the Cherokee Purple is having the same problem. Meanwhile, I'm eating Early Girls a couple of times a week and my Celebrities and Sweet 100s have set fruit.

I looked up the causes of blossom drop and it seems that they drop if it's too hot, too cold, too dry or too windy. Our schizophrenic weather has given us some of each.

Thanks a lot, hmmph. *shakes fist at clouds*

This is the first year out of 4 that I decided not to grow Brandywine. I LOVE the flavor, but I don't have the patience or space for a plant that is on the coy side when it comes to producing tomatoes. This year I have 8 plants and only 2 are considered heirlooms (Cherokee Purple and Pineapple)the rest are hybrids. The only reason that I am growing these two is that I've planted them before and they were consistent. I need a plant that is both reliable and consistent when it comes to production. I am trying BrandyBoy this year and will see what it does.

Here's a pic of my one and only Brandywine (Red)...

Aside from the couple you see here, there are 8-10 more the size of a pea... but growing everyday! (Along with my appetite!)

Hey! I've got 2 itty bitty fruits on Brandywine! Woo-hoo, all that plant shaking finally paid off.

Got any yet Steve? Temps seem to be favorable for fruitset.

Here are afew that have set. The first twelve plants are BW and BW sudduth.

Vince

Mine look like Vince's pic just above but my fruit are a bit smaller. He's about one or two weeks ahead of me. But I have plenty of fruit set on each of my plants. Brandywine (Sudduth)is a fine producer for me in Delaware. I grow in lots of compost and I'm organic. I never shake plants either to encourage fruit set. It has always amazed me here reading about so many of you having low yields with Brandywine.

My Brandywine set a nice amount of fruit last year, here in northeastern MD. I used Burpee seed for my Brandywines. This year, I'm trying Sudduth's for the first time, and planted it right next to the Burpee version to make a comparison. The Sudduth's strain looks a little more vigorous, but they both have their first few blooms already. The Burpee is about a foot tall, the Sudduth's, about 6 inches more.

Now, can we talk Brandy Boy? Got a few tomatoes set on those already, before my Early Girls even! They'll take longer to mature than EG, but I'm amazed at how well this type does, and how early it set fruit. The stuff grows like wildfire, sets fruit like crazy, and taste darn near as good as Brandywine....not quite, but almost. If I had to pick an all around favorite, Brandy Boy might be it.

Vince
The plants on the left of your photo look like most of the leaves have been removed. Is this a good thing or was there a problem that caused you to remove them? I've been removing the ones that touch the ground but not the ones above them.

tomatovator,

You are correct that many leaves have been removed from these plants. It is not a good thing but a survival thing because BW, BW Sudduth, and Earl's faux have got late blight really bad. I don't use any sprays so the best I can do is pluck the infected leaves (to remove as many spores as possible) to help slow the spread through the rest of the garden. This is really a terible affliction, and is amazing how fast it spreads. Many of these fruits look stunted, probably in combination from few leaves and the late blight.The temps have been perfect here for the last 3 weeks for fruit set, and if the blight wasn't destroying the young flower clusters I would have at least twice as many set. I would definately prefer to have my nice lush leaves back.

Vince

Vince

Vince, sorry about your blight problem. That stinks.

Foose, my BrandyBoy's are winners too. It did great last year. Here I can't tell one plant from the other at the three foot tall stage. Brandywine and BrandyBoy apppear identical in growth habit. But I don't look that hard. LOL The fruit of BBoy is almost as great tasting as BW. It's a great addition to my "must grow" list.

I had buds appear on my Brandywine last week ...
Nothing open yet - but seems to be "up to speed" with the rest of the varieties ~

Tom