Sound to me like a pollenation issue still, have you tried shaking you plants a little. Also given when you plant it and your weather 16 foot at this time year is not uncommon for indeterminate variety.

We want Pic's!

16 footer- I gotta see that!

We stopped using any nitrogen fertilizer around it months ago and instead spray the leaves with seaweed every week... but nothing.

****

In addition to blossom drop, please see the article in the FAQ section at the top of this first page about that, and lack of pollination due to that , thus no fruit set, I do think that you've overfertilized them.

Tomatoes are self fertilizing and don't need any insect pollinators.

I don't know how much N you were using before you stopped with that but once in the soil it stays until it's used up and that can be weeks to months depending on many variables.

And now you're just adding more N with your foliage application, even tho the NPK of that is low.

Too much N or growing in too rich soils can result in lack of blossoms and/or lack of fruit set as well.

But I do think with a zone 10 California that the problem is most likely blossom drop probably due to high sustained heat, which destroys the pollen, as explained in the FAQ section I referred you too, possibly made worse by too much N.

And no amount of shaking the plant will help if the pollen is not viable. If for some reason the plants are in a sustained humid situation re irrigation, the high humidity can cause pollen clumping and such clumped pollen is not efficient in pollenizing.

Carolyn

Thanks so much! After posting this I read about pollen clumping and that may be the case... The only thing I'm confused about is we don't really have extremely high summer temps here. I live in Redondo Beach next to the ocean. I've been told that we are considered zone 10 because of our lack of cooling hours in the winter, not extreme temps in summer. It rarely breaks the mid-90's in the summer (we usually hover around the low-80's) and the humidity is high here for California, but I'm from the midwest and, believe me, it's nothing like Minnesota :) But that's the only thing that really makes any sense.

Carolyn, I had NO IDEA there was still N in seaweed! The bottle says 0-0-2. Is there an organic source of K that is N free? In the rest of the garden I use EB Stone Organic fertilizer for tomatoes and Vegetables in the soil every 3 weeks- I believe it's 4-6-5. Then I spray all my Tomatoes with seaweed every week (that's what it says to do on the bottle).

My German Queen is by 3 Aristocrat squash plants and some cucumbers and we continued to fertilized the soil around these plants so maybe I bet my GQ is still getting some N there. Do you think I should cut back to spraying w seaweed every other week? Or stop completely?
We hacked off some of the longest limbs of the G.Q. yesterday when we put the plant over the arbor. Will this injure the plant? Can we keep cutting back the top to keep it a manageable length?

Oh, one more question... when should I pull these plants out or cut them down? Will they just die out after a while? I honestly have no idea what I'm doing. In Minnesota the winter lets you know when the growing season is over :)

I will try to post some pics tonight or tomorrow. I'm waiting for my neighbor to come home so I can use her as a visual reference... I need to show my grandma my 9 ft cherry tomato plant because she doesn't believe me :)

Any other thoughts are greatly appreciated!

We want Pic's, We want Pic's, We want Pic's....

And don't throw a little midget person next to that plant to make it look bigger.

Carolyn, I had NO IDEA there was still N in seaweed! The bottle says 0-0-2. Is there an organic source of K that is N free? In the rest of the garden I use EB Stone Organic fertilizer for tomatoes and Vegetables in the soil every 3 weeks- I believe it's 4-6-5. Then I spray all my Tomatoes with seaweed every week (that's what it says to do on the bottle).

****

I don't think I've yet seen a seaweed or fish prep that had no N. But your's doesn't and it doesn't have anything more that a bit of K ( potassium) of the three numbers the first is N, the second P and the third is K.

*****

Do you think I should cut back to spraying w seaweed every other week? Or stop completely?
****

Personally I don't see the sense of continuing with it b'c all it has is a small amoutn of K. Just my opinion.

*****
We hacked off some of the longest limbs of the G.Q. yesterday when we put the plant over the arbor. Will this injure the plant? Can we keep cutting back the top to keep it a manageable length?
****

You injured the plant when you cut off the branches. ( smile) Keep cutting it? I don't really know what to say b'c I'm not that familiar with your local growing conditions.

******
Oh, one more question... when should I pull these plants out or cut them down? Will they just die out after a while? I honestly have no idea what I'm doing. In Minnesota the winter lets you know when the growing season is over :)

****

You've said your temps where you live aren't that high so I see no need to pull them out when there's still a possiblity of fruit set. Again, I don't know your local conditions that well and you might ask someone else who grows them in your area or ask at a reputable local nursery.

Carolyn

I grew German Queen last yr and this.

It is a very large plant with low production, suseptable to blossom drop and BER but last yr anyway, the taste was superb. I'll let you know how this yr's taste in a few days :-)

I do flick the blossoms sub 90F but also do agree with Carolyn that it sounds like too much fert. You should have toms by now, even from this finicky variety. All you others bearing OK?

Darcy, I'm in Redondo Beach also about 1/2 mile from the ocean. I've got really good fruit set on 9 out of 10 plants (only Mortgage Lifter has not set any fruit), so I doubt it's the weather. Maybe your G.Q. and my Mortgage Lifter will kick in later this year. There's always hope, anyway. :)

I agree w/ Dr.tomato.. Got to see some pictures!

I do hope they start producing for you soon though.

Corey

Sorry it took so long...

Here is the best pic I can get of the plant (There is a brick wall about 2 feet from it's side)- though I should tell you we lost about 3 feet when we moved it- but it's still 13-14 feet and growing. I posted pics of my whole garden on the Garden Photos forum- including some of our other ridiculously tall tomato plants. The thread is titled "Over planted awesomeness: Pics of my first garden" if your interested.

{{gwi:61871}}

Thanks again!

Here's the link:
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/gardgal/msg0821191516803.html

Looks like a dark area and the plant looks leggy.
Are you pruning?
I don't see many, flowers?
Sea weed with only 2 k? what good is that?

It looks to me like you've been pruning. Removing suckers promotes top growth making the plant taller. How much sunlight does the plant get? BTW, the minimum is 6 to 8 hours. Lack of sunlight can not only make a plant leggy, but can also reduce flowering/fruit set.

I looked at the pictures on your other thread. Under the circumstances I'd say you're doing fairly well. I noticed that the other tomato plants are producing well. There are some things (e.g. temperatures) that affect fruit set that can be eliminated or the other plants would not have set fruit either. Another possibility that remains would be movement. Tomatoes are self fertile, but need help pollinating (no debates please). This can be in the form of bees sonicating, air movement, an electric toothbrush, or just by gently shaking the plant. So, the next time you see flowers that aren't quite open try to give the plant a shake and see if that helps with fruit set.

BTW, cutting the tops out of a tomato plant will cause it to be shorter and more bushy. I am not recommending that you do that one way or the other. I'm just listing cause and affect.

Good luck.

Randy

p.s. Growing big plants is not a bad thing. I do it too. I like big healthy plants. I triple stacked the cages once, but never again. These days I use 5.5' cages and let 'em flop. It is a pain to get the ladder to pick tomatoes. Taking pictures can make for good conversation though. :-)

{{gwi:90247}}

My dad does the same: he uses the little 3' cages and lets his plants fall. I would complain, but he always gets an enormous crop and his plants always look healthy, lol. He's the reason that I've never thought about growing my own tomatoes, he grew them for everyone. He pointed out this year that he's not growing em next year, so maybe I'd want to learn.

I'm growing a German Queen on the hill side just above Universal Studios. It is producing large double blooms, but most of them do not result in fruit. The plant is already over 6 feet tall, and I expect it to grow taller. It seems like though that flowers and tomatoes tend to develop around the top. I don't know if it is a logical explanation, but maybe this makes this variety keep on growing and never stopping for a little rest. It wants to get higher to bear the fruit on the top.
There are also LUGAS (arbor, trellis, or bower) tomatoes that I know from Hungary. These tomatoes are similar to vines. They just keep on growing and growing, like a Morning Glory, Passion Flower, or Clematis, until they freeze down. Maybe German Queen is a similar variety.
Also: I have planted some tomatoes last year, then during construction, kind of forgot about them behind the house, so they stayed in ground and overwintered, then nicely came back this year and even bore tomatoes IN THE DARK. I recently rescued them and planted them in large pots, placing them in a sunny area to recover. The point is: in Southern California, you might not need to plant tomatoes every year. You might keep the same plant for multiple years if you happen to be lucky and instinctively, out of knowledge, or for any other reasons, you provide ideal conditions for it.
I didn't know German Queen was such a grower. Where do I find longer than 6 feet stakes for it? In my memory, I remember manageable sized everbearing bush tomato plants from Hungary, not monsters like I grow here in America. Not that it bothers me much. I can live with the 1000 tomatoes per plant in the case of Sun Gold or Yellow Pear... Only, if I knew, I would have planted them differently. Now, I have a jungle. An impressive one, indeed, but it is a jungle. I want to do it again.
Now I am planting tomatoes everywhere. :o)

{{gwi:423645}}
Ripening Sun Gold
Sorry, I didn't take pics of the German Queen yesterday morning.

Thanks so much for all the info. I tried to shake some of the flowers today. I have decided to completely stop fertilizing it- until it tells me it needs it:)
Yes, I have been pruning the German Queen- not at first, but when it didn't set fruit and all our other plants did I started- at that point it was about 7 feet tall but not very bushy.
I'm pretty sure we get enough sun back there. The back garden (where the G.Q. is planted) gets at least 7 hours of light- but it's southern exposure so it does not get full California sun. Honestly, in my non-expert opinion, I think this is a good thing. Our full sun plants do not do as well and they need to be watered every other day (according to the ground gauges) even though we heavily amended the soil before we planted because we have very sandy soil to begin with. This pic was taken in the early evening- like 6ish. There is a 6 foot brick wall blocking in the garden about a foot away out of frame- but it doesn't seem to block much light because the sun goes almost directly over the garden (there is no roof overhang because it's red tile). The plant is leggy though. A lot of the (leggyness looks worse in this pic then it was because we had a bad mold problem that killed or wilted most of the bottom leaves- I just cut them off because nothing was stopping it. I've been told that in Redondo, because of the humidity and cooler temps, mold (powdery mildew) is a big problem- it nearly killed the whole garden this year. However, this tomato has always been more leggy then our others.
We were not using stakes- we were doubling the triangle wire tomato cages that they sell around here- they're about 4 feet tall- the German queen had grown all the way over the top and to the ground before we rigged this contraption. I would have left it, but the mold is much worse closer to the ground. The good thing (mold-wise) is that it never rains here (Actually, I shouldn't say never, it did once- for about 20 minutes back in early May, and powdery Mildew covered every plant we had by sunset).
My neighbor planted tomatoes in the same spot like 5 or 6 years ago- he said that they grew 3 years before they died out... So, if there is a possibility that they'll grow back, should I cut them down to the ground then when they die out? Or should I leave them to wilt on the ground? Or does it matter? There's probably 30 flowers on it right now, but It's always been covered with flowers- they just don't turn into tomatoes.
Thanks again!

I don't shake my plants, but I hose them down when I water them, and that must do the shaking for me pollination-wise...