I don't think it is disease, but I have had blossom drop galore... I think upwards of 80% on some plants including brandyboy, big beef, cuostralee, and neves azorean red.

Not a physical one. But I am struggling with "Fruits will set but won't grow".
It has been happening with more than half a dozen varieties.
I have not been able to figure it out what causes it. I have some theories though. .
Everything else is smooth going .

Sey

Lots of rain this month - last week, 6 consecutive days of it. Not a lot of hot weather, but the humidity has been off the charts lately and high humidity makes for sticky pollen and significantly reduces fruit set.

Big Beef and Rutgers are the only two varieties that are showing close to normal productivity. Others appear to be lagging at this time.

Everythings going really good so far I think. Very vigorous growth, lots of tomatoes. I'm new to big tomatoes, so didn't prune. Lots of tomatoes in the dirt + rainy season = rot risk I think. So yesterday I went up there and did a hack job pruning and getting fruit off the ground. I propped as much as possible up off by wood n pots.

I think the rain heat thing is normal here. I see more posh gardens with purpose built steel-frame-poly-roof things to dry tomatoes etc out a bit. Rainy season

Same here in NJ. Weather caused fruit delay.

A lot of Brandy Boy flowers but no fruit...

My serviceberry got rust in early Spring, that was a bummer. The weather extremes are wicked this year, for sure. Our basement almost flooded with the remnants of Bill and I've noticed some cracking on my Krims from the inconsistent rain (if it's not hot and oppressive it's raining cats and dogs). I've noticed a lot of leaf spot going around on my perennials as well this year.

My problem is keeping the Big Beef in their cages. They are getting huge, never had a plant this big and healthy looking with tons of tomatoes and flowers. Fortunately mine is a good problem. I can tell you now Big Beef is my new every year tomato.

Heat and no rain for the last few weeks. It's been in the mid to upper 90's and all the rain that is predicted just goes around us! While everyone else is getting drenched, we are bone dry. It is a double edged sword. Since the tomatoes are in fabric containers, I have to water three times a day now. But I have no disease problems at all. Dawn, I have enjoyed reading your blog.

Jennie

We have had a lot of rain the past couple of weeks and it is always humid here in the summer. No early blight yet, which is usually an issue for me but this year I have been spraying Daconill, Asprin watering, and removing lower branches, so all of those measures seem to be holding it off for now. I did have to cut off some tomato leaves today because they look like they are getting Septoria. My tomatoes are afflicted with diseases every year. They almost always get early blight, they sometimes get Septoria and one year they were covered in bacterial speck. I usually only lose a couple of plants each year and get plenty of ripe tomatoes so I try not to stress too much about it.

I have never had any wilt problems so I have no advice for you...good luck and I hope things get better :).

My biggest issues this year are that Deer ate three of my sunflowers, I planted my corn too deep so it didn't come up, and something big trampled through my beans today and broke off a bunch of stems. Other than that everything is coming along pretty good.

It's been very hot and my toms are leggy. (I didn't know that about air temps before I saw it here...) Actually I bet the roots are too hot too. I put my pot on top of another pot to make it taller and, I hope, cooler (I garden on a balcony).

Rain, humidity, disease pressure, blossom drop- worse than last year, much worse. But I have more tools and more experience. The only problem if the village applied contaminated compost last year because weeds are not growing well. Could be other factors but this one is disturbing.

blossom drop... upwards of 80%. Don't know why, but it could be the fluctuating temps. Highs this weekend are in the low 100's which is 15 degrees above normal. had the same thing about 3 weeks ago.

I have only noticed one flower under my plants that fell off. Lucky so far.

Drought, endless California drought. Dead and dying lawns. Watering schedules, guilt over using too much. Wondering when they are going to threaten me.
Personally, I am still learning how to grow tomatoes. Making mistakes each year. First year, I put too many plants in too small pots. Next year, somehow my container plants got wilt and died. Pots still not big enough. This year, I put them in the ground but too close together. They are 8 feet high but I can barely squeeze my hand in to pick the ripe ones! And I have to get into weird positions to even find them! But I do have very happy vigorous plants so far. But these high temperatures are not helping the fruit set right now.

I'm glad someone else mentioned drought, kathy9norcal. The guilt - I can empathize completely. I'm super conscious of every drop I use and while I can't honestly say I miss my lawn I wish I could garden without the constant agonizing over wasting water.
This is the first year I've seriously tried growing bigger-sized heirlooms (normally I stick with reliable cherry types) and I'm seeing a lot more blossom drop than I expected. It's kind of depressing to have large plants and not a lot of fruit set. That needs to happen soon or I'm going to run out of season before anything is ripe.
But yeah, water is the big one...

We are having drought too. But up here I never depend on rain. If it rains here it will mostly less than 1/2" at a time, not enough to water the plants. But with high temps I have to hand water (hose or watering can) more often It will take me about 15 - 20 minutes to do it.
So I don't have to struggle. The highest high will be 95F and the rest of 15 days will be in low 90s.
Sey

I think high temperatures and lack of rain affect most of us.
While I don't think that will be cooler any time soon, I'm sure that soon we'll have MORE rain than we need.
Heavy winds will damage many tomatoes, especially those with weak support.

The weather has been the biggest challenge. Started out cold and wet with a near record wet April. May was warm and dry but cold ground temperatures delayed growth and fruit set. Mid June on has been very wet and incredibly humid. 8 inches of rain in the last 10 days with several more inches possible today. Luckily I planted my tomatoes in hills so they are fairing better than many in my area. They are holding up pretty well so far but I really need some dry weather.

Out of 10 day forecast 5 rain. Am hoping for some of the dry weather you talking about...otherwise my yield this year will be a bust.

While last year here in Long Island NY, they forecasted 8 days IN A ROW of rain - it rained only... ONE day - in YOUR area (IL) the forecast could be true. Sorry.

The tomatoes seem to be doing fine. They got planted 2-3 weeks late so they are just now starting to put out flowers. I struggled with flea beetles earlier and hail and too much rain but now it seems like things have stabilized.

Now the gardener on the other hand... 30-40% humidity? This Colorado boy is wilting! Usually we get a nice cool down at night, into the 50's but this year is so muggy we only get down to the mid 60's! Good for pod set on my peppers, bad for trying to sleep when it feels like a sauna!

Though it could have been much worse my tomato-related difficulties had much to do with temps and weather. A cool spell coupled with steady rain in late May and early June. This slowed down growth but thankfully serious disease did not set in, i'll wager that preventative spraying helped. I have a tiny bit more blossom drop than normal, it seems to be affecting Brandy Boy the most. Whereas my prized red and pink hearts seem to be holding most blossoms, and setting a good amount of little heart shaped fruit.

My annuum peppers have the nasty bacterial spot again, i didn't catch it early enough, so now i get to battle it all season long. I'll do some quick research on systemic fungicides, just so i don't have to rely on copper-sulfate + serenade. I've already yanked and replaced the worst looking plants...

Steve

I think it is very interesting to see the different struggles each of us face where we garden. I wish we could all have perfect gardening conditions, but then again if we did, how would we learn to be better?

It seems like the most common problems are heat, humidity, and blossom drop (and blossoms not forming tomatoes). Ironically for me with all the high heat and humidity we've had, and my wilting plants, I have have record low amounts of blossom drop. Don't ask me how because truly I have no idea why.

Dawn

One tomato fell to some issue, my Cherokee purple is still small but setting fruit. We have has fluxuating temps in nj, then periods of dry weather then really really rainy weather and I think it's been impacting

Rabbits. Rabbits and chipmunks.

Blight on the tomatoes, potato beetles on the potatoes, cuke beetles having a jolly good time demolishing my cucumbers and zucchini. Rain every other darn day. Not a great year so far. Could be worse though, so I'll try and stop complaining.

2 days without rain seems to be a record. Blossom drop took away lots of potential tomatoes. No discernible reason now for it to continue.

One tomato is developing early blight or septoria or something, but I haven't used daconil in a few weeks. Time for another round of that I guess. Other than that, something is eating my beans. They grow a few inches tall and something lops the top right off. I think it's a rabbit because after the first time I covered the stem with a basket and it grew back fine. When I removed the basket, wham, tops got eaten again, so it's probably not an insect, which would be able to get in under or through the wire basket. I have the same problem every year with beans -- the sprouts must be really tasty. :)

Caryl, go ahead with Daconile spray and soak the leaves as much as you can.

On your bean problem, I bet it is RABBITS. The love beans greens. I have a simple solution. Get some fine nylon tulle from fabric store and cover your beans , just throw it on the beans. The fine mesh ones are very light weight, light, air and water can go through it. Rabbits are very cautious not to get tangled with the tulle. Tulle s an under discovered , under used plan protection, from rabbits, sluggs, flea beetles, ..etc. Critters like rats, rabbits, squirrels, get scared of from the things that look like a trap.

ABOUT MY STRUGGLING ?
I luckily have none other than regular maintenance, maybe more watering especially my potted tomatoes and pepper.

Sey

nope, did not last 2 days, heavy downpour right after I applied compost tea to the leaves... should have saved some time and just soil drenched...my forecast was low chance of rain too...

Bacterial wilt. All else is fine.