Probably it is too much rain. With some apparently healthy tomato plants, you will have flowering but no fruit in periods of high humidity, which we definitely are having this year. The rain and humidity make the pollen 'sticky' so it clumps together and, consequently, pollination fails to occur. Some varieties are worse about having sticky pollen than others. In my experience here in southern Oklahoma, Brandywine is one of the worst for being slow to go from the flower to fruit stage. To increase the odds of getting fruit, shake your plants gently. This is easy to do if you have them in cages or if they are trellised or staked. Just grab hold of the cage, stake or trellis and shake it a little. The shaking might loosen up enough pollen to cause pollination to occur. It is a little harder to shake them effectively without breaking a stem if the plants are sprawling on the ground, but you can still do it. There are a couple of other ways to help increase pollination. You can use your fingers to 'thump' each blossom several times. This is pretty easy to do if you only have a handful of blossoms per plant, but if you have tons of blossoms, it can become time consuming. On the other hand, you don't hve to thump them all. Or, if you have your plants caged, staked or trellised.....and if you have an old tennis racket or badminton racket sitting around, just walk down the row of plants and give each cage, stake or trellis a couple of fairly hard whacks with the racket. That whack may shake the plant hard enough to induce pollination. The only other option is that your plants have too much nitrogen so their energy is going into leaf production and not fruit production. Since you have flowers, though, I doubt that is the problem. You should get great watermelon production IF the rain eventually stops. Whether the watermelons have good flavor will be the issue. Watermelons that ripen when it is extremely wet often have a noticeable lack of good flavor. Just like tomatoes, watermelon varieties have a certain brix (degee of sweetness) they generally attain. If excessive rainfall occurs, the flavor is essentially 'watered down' and you can't do anything to prevent it, except pray for the rain to stop before the watermelons hit the ripening stage. Unfortunately we are at the mercy of the weather and this is just a really awful weather year. I hope the rain stops and the production of the plants improves. Dawn

Yeah, I know the weather has been just terrible where I am. I just got my first tomatoes last week, and they were Stupice. I had foot tall plants when I set out during a warm spell in mid/late April. Then it was nothing but rain and cold, until the last month - then it wasn't cold, but was just as much rain :( So yeah, the weather has been less than ideal for setting fruit and ripening. When I set out my plants April 20th, I expected I'd see some Stupice after about 60 days, which would have given me tomatoes with time to spare before the July 4th weekend. In reality, I didn't get to eat my first fully ripe Stupice until July 10th! That's about 80 days after setting plants out. I have a bunch of late varieties this year, just holding out hope to see some ripe ones of those by August.

Hello there, minneapolismike: It's nice of you to be looking out for your friend. It certainly couldn't hurt to root some suckers for your friend, but you know how we cold zoners always run out of summer all too quickly. Rooting plants will still be putting your friend behind a couple of weeks, but it may be all he has. Still, if you root some plants and he plants them in the same place, he may very well encounter the same problem where they just sit there and do nothing. It sounds like he is getting enough sun, assuming 8 hours is correct, although you can never have too much sun for tomato plants. More would be better, but we can only use what we have to work with. Generally, there are a few things that would keep tomato plants from growing. Assuming there is no disease (doesn't sound like it) and no pests (like deer chomping off the plants or hornworms scarfing down the leaves), the things I can think of off the top of my head: * Temps too cold or too hot. Generally speaking folks in our zones have issues with chilly temps in spring, but it rarely gets too hot. If we had sustained temps in the high 90s+ for weeks on end, that would be a different thing. But, we don't. If we did, everyone would be having issues, not just one person. *Insufficient sunlight. Eight hours should be enough, but let's hope that Rod is not overestimating the length of time that his plants are getting photons. :-) * Unsuitable soil. Meaning: soil that is very compacted so that roots can't grow and expand and/or soil that is devoid of important nutrients. If the roots can't grow. such as with compacted soil, it's best to add amendments to improve the soil before planting. Unfortunately it's too late for that for your friend, but if he plants new plants, I would make sure that he digs good-sized, fairly deep holes, loosens the dirt as much as possible, and fills it in with rich, loose soil so that the roots can grow and breathe. One thing that minneapolisrod could try at this point is a water soluble fertilizer, dissolved in a bucket of water according to package directions, and poured on the soil around the plants. Every 7 to 10 days. There are a number of such fertilizers on the market, and it certainly can't hurt at this juncture. It also couldn't hurt if he applied some of it as a foliar feed in addition to feeding the roots, as the leaves will take in some nutrients too. Which leads to the observation that perhaps his plants are not getting enough nitrogen, although I'd expect to see other symptoms eventually, such as some yellowing of the plants. Some mulches can tie up nitrogen so the plants don't get enough, and that could stifle their growth. Cool temperatures can also cause a temporary lack of nitrogen. Anyhow, too little nitrogen can keep the plants puny. The fertilizer, used as above, should rectify that issue. Good luck, and thanks for being such a good friend. Best wishes to...

here is a link to something called "Blossom Drop" in the Tomatoes FAQ Here is a link that might be useful: Blossom Drop in FAQ