I definitely have little experience gardening myself but I have had some quite successful gardens over the years. My father was a master organic gardener in the '70s before organic was a thing. He grew the best beefsteak tomatoes I've ever had. We would go around in the fall and pick up peoples raked leaves and then go to the horse farm for manure and make compost. Ahh to go back there again.
Any, back on point, unfortunately for me, I was a stupid teenager and did not take the opportunity to soak up all that knowledge he had and then he had a car accident and it became too late. I will forever regret that. Anyway, I don't have much space to garden. My cucumbers seem to always do great and I end up pickling every year I grow them.
My tomatoes on the other hand, not so much. I live in Charlotte, NC FYI. The plants get crazy tall (like 6 feet tall) but the stems are spindly and weak. They never produce much of anything. I think it may be daylight related. There is only one spot in my yard that has 8-10 ours of full sunlight a day. And that spot also has a dusk to dawn light that runs all night, every night. I keep reading where tomatoes need at LEAST 6 hours of total darkness a night. I see where they are known to not do well when people try to use grow lights indoors as a result. Do you think the Sodium night light (I THINK that's what grow lights are as well) is the issue? The spots that have total darkness only have 6 hours of full sunlight a day and I don't know which is worse. I quit trying for a few years but I always kept his gardening books and it seems that maybe I inherited the gardening bug because I keep going back.
This is my first post also I dedicate it to my late Father. Man, could he garden anything.

Tomatoes don't need darkness. The idea that plants need darkness to grow properly is mostly a myth. For garden vegetables it's a complete myth.

Tomatoes want and need as much sun as you can get them. I wouldn't even bother planting a full sized indeterminate plant if I didn't have a spot with at least 8, preferably 10 hours of direct sunlight in summer. Some of the tiny patio varieties may be able to swing 6-8 hours of sun but they'll produce much less than true full sun.

Spindly and weak usually means not enough light.
Can you trim some of the surrounding foliage to get more light to your garden?
Do you have another spot for your plants? Many people have front yards that are open and get good light but they never think to use them for gardens.

FYI - 6' isn't crazy tall for a tomato. It's relatively easy to grow a 12' tall tomato, and some grow much bigger.

Tall and spindly with little production makes think you may be using too much nitrogen fertilizer. You may not need any extra fertilizer or if you do find some with a lower first number (N ) and larger second and third (P and K). A soil test will tell you exactly what you need...or don't need.

Thanks for the replies. I'm certainly not suggesting that everything you read on the internet is true of course. But this is just one of the many articles I see that talks about darkness so you can see at least where my confusion comes from. If you convert the below to a link you can view it.

homeguides.sfgate.com/tomatoes-grow-darkness-67767.html

You get natural darkness at night, hence the term night shade plants, I think tomato plant is one of them.

Unfortunately, my gardening spot has a high pressure sodium dusk to dawn light that I have no control over that runs all night. That is a grow light. So these have no "natural darkness"

basmith302 said:Unfortunately, my gardening spot has a high pressure sodium dusk to dawn light that I have no control over that runs all night. That is a grow light. So these have no "natural darkness"

Unless it's sitting 2 feet above them with a reflector to focus all the light on a single plant it really shouldn't matter.