That is so nice of you, to try to help me solve this problem. I believe damping off may have played a role on my first batch of seedlings...due to the fact that I kept it too hot, too wet, and cover on to boot. This second batch does have me puzzled...and I think (i don't know) that lack of fertilizer is the problem as well as lack of water. Since this thread started I began a twice weekly foliar-feeding program (weak solution) so far I have misted 3 times....and everything I have sprayed is turning a darker green, putting out true leaves, and getting bigger. The tiny seedlings are the only ones I lost yesterday...and pretty sure it was because the media was too dry. As per tons of advice I figured my media needed to be more porous than the last batch...so by golly I made it porous. Seeds sprouted just fine, but now I've made it too hard to keep up with watering. I need to meet at the happy medium. I am going shopping (maybe tomarrow) for some ProMix BX. I think you guys are right and that may be a great point in the right direction...for PH reasons too. I have also been faithful at adding 1 tsp of vinegar to each gallon of water, which bring the ph to 6.7. I can definately tell that I'm not leaving water spots on leaves nearly as bad. It may have gotten up past 80*F in my greenhouse yesterday, but not much more. I didn't take the plants out because the forcast called for scattered showers, and that usually means a downpour. Lately I've been able to to move them all outside for at least part of the day, so genuine sunshine (not filtered) might be helping with the growth spurt too. To tell the truth, I am quite happy with the week and a half improvements made, with all your help. And other than yesterday's disaster, I believe my greenhouse is going to start seeing more green. :) I'll try to take some pictures...if I can figure out to post them.

OH, I get Annies Catalog but will have to go to her website and look for the tomato seedlings! I did order already from Wild Boar. I never been one to have any patience, I ordered the tomato seeds from Wild Boar Farms that I wanted. I read on their website that tomato seeds are good for ten years so I guess mine will be fine until I start them next spring! I ordered - Black And Brown Boar Red Boar Pink Boar Sweet Carneros Pink Pink Berkley Tie Dye I really have to start seeds next spring as I want to grow these. Plus there is another type of tomatoes that I want to grow and those are The New Dwarfs. I know plants of those will not be available locally so seeds it is. It seems to me that this dwarf tomato project is the most exciting thing to hit the tomato world in years! Here is a link that might be useful: The Dwarf Tomato Project

Mark, There are several possible reasons. Tomato plants are individuals and not clones, so they all will not act the same as one another. They'll have their own individual responses to the conditions in which they're living. Once you've grown tomatoes for a while, you'll even notice that a specific variety performs differently (and even tastes differently) in different years. You cannot compare peppers to tomatoes because they are not exactly the same. Hot peppers, in particular, are not as affected by the heat/humidity as tomatoes are, for example, so they tend to set fruit all summer long. Some sweet peppers do so as well, although some of them slow down in the worst of the summer heat. Fish Emulsion isn't really high nitrogen, or at least not high enough to impede flowering in and of itself. Most fish emulsions have an NPK ratio of either 5-1-1 or 5-2-2, which hardly is an exceptionally high amount of nitrogen. Is the issue you're seeing that no flowers are forming at all or is it that flowers are forming and dropping off because fertilization is not occurring? That's a key issue because they are separate problems. If no flowers are forming, then the plants are not mature enough to set fruit and carry a load or there is too much nitrogen (which means your mix has too much nitro because fish emulsion alone wouldn't do it) or some other sort of nutritional imbalance. Or, it could mean they are not receiving enough hours per day of sunlight. If flowers are forming and falling off unpollinated, that's blossom drop and it generally is related to high heat/high humidity. The larger the fruit a plant produces, the more that flowering/fruitset seems to be impacted negatively by heat heat/high humidity. So, even when the heat and humidity are high, many of the bite-size tomatoes (whether they're classified as cherry, grape, currant, plum or pear-shaped) flower and set fruit just fine, but a few of them do not. Varieties that produce really large fruit often do not flower or set fruit well in high heat and high humidity. Some varieties that produce smaller slicer or saladette types will set fruit at high temps almost as well as the bite-sized ones do. Every tomato variety reacts differently, so some may have blossom drop when nighttime lows are exceeding 72 degrees, but others might not see blossom drop until nighttime lows are exceeding 75. The same is true with high temps. For some varieties, 92 degrees appears to be the point at which fertilization ceases but for others it might be 95 degrees. Then, if you have high humidity, that can make pollen sticky so that it clumps together and does not shed from the anthers like it should. Conversely, in very low relative humidity you may see fruit set even at high temperatures. My best guess is that part of the problem is the varieties you chose...most are mid-season or late-season and not early season. So, they flower and fruit a bit later than tomatoes with a shorter DTM. Keep in mind that DTMs are estimates only and your actual results may vary quite a bit from the DTMs. Part of the problem is undoubtedly the high humidity and/or high heat or some combination thereof. If you are getting blossoms and they then abort without setting fruit, it could be the heat or the humidity, but it also could be poor air flow. If the pollen is a little sticky and isn't shedding from the anthers, you can help it along with thumping each individual blossom or by gently shaking the tomato cage. Also, while you don't want to keep the soil heavily saturated, you want to keep it evenly moist and not let it dry out too much in between waterings. This is especially true of tomatoes in containers as uneven watering can contribute to blossom end rot. If your plants are cycling from dry to moist and back to dry again, the plants may not feel like they're receiving consistent enough moisture to carry fruit. With regards to the varieties you listed, Brandywine is late, late, late and produces poorly in our heat. Arkansas Traveler is a late one and usually doesn't bloom for me until sometimes in June, and then those fruit are ready to pick by August. Black Krim and Cherokee Purple usually flower for me in late May, but this year they aren't, so I think it is the weather because they're certainly large enough, have consistent moisture and are in well-amended soil with good fertility. Some years Roma can sit and wait forever before it blooms, but once it does, it sets a lot of fruit and they are ready fairly quickly. Black Cherry sometimes is slow to start flowerings and setting fruit, and sometimes not. Sometimes it slows down more in the heat of the summer than other cherries do and sometimes it doesn't. It is kind of a garden diva at times, but it gets away with it simply because the flavor of the fruit is so good. I don't know what your temperature and humidity have been like for the last two or three weeks, but mine have been too hot on some days for fertilization to occur but not on others. Remember that I said that plants are individuals? I have right around 100 tomato plants and some have already produced several ripe tomatoes, some of which have been quite large, and others haven't even bloomed yet while a few have set and ripened a lot of smallish tomatoes. That is pretty typical behavior. Also, tomatoes in containers do not peform exactly like those in the ground. Remember that tomato plants in the ground can send their roots out searching for more water or more nutrition if they need it, but plants in containers are trapped in the containers so cannot help themselves in that same manner. So, tomato plants in containers have a smaller margin of error than those in the ground and they may stunt or stall if they are not happy. Some years I have as many as 40 tomato plants in containers. This year I have 9. Why? Because I was expecting a hotter-than-average and drier-than-average growing season and I knew that tomatoes in containers would struggle more in those conditions. Thus I put fewer of them in containers, and my smallest containers this year are 20-gallon containers. I have grown tomatoes in containers as small as 5 gallons, but tomato plants in containers that small are hard to keep happy and often do not produce well in our climate. For maximum production, they need larger containers that hold more moisture, that allow their roots to spread out and that keep their roots cool. Don't overlook the possiblity that the heat is just baking the roots of the plants in containers. Dawn

Thank you ladies! It's the end of the season for me, so these are 3 random tomatoes that have done this from a plant that has produced a whole bunch all summer. The plant was tagged as a Roma, but has never given me a tomato bigger than grape size, so I'm not certain that the tag was accurate. Had another Roma-type tomato (Golden Milano) and that gave out stereotypically Roma sized tomatoes under the same conditions. ::shrug:: I suppose it could indeed be catfacing since it is just three of a hundred or so? It was just so... weird!