i planted about 10 tomatoes plants. they are good 10' far from each other. some in the ground, some on raised beds, and some in 5 gallon pots. they are very well watered and fed. however they each produce about only 5(!) tomatoes. How can I help increase their production?

thanks,
Lee

Lee, do you know what variety your tomato plants are? If they are what is known as a "Determinate" variety then they simply produce one crop and are done.

Are they still producing flowers? Have you had much really hot weather lately? Sometimes plants will slow down and not set fruit in a spell of hot weather, as well.

What are you using for fertilizer? Could you post some pictures of your plants?

dyzzypyxxy said:Lee, do you know what variety your tomato plants are? If they are what is known as a "Determinate" variety then they simply produce one crop and are done.

Are they still producing flowers? Have you had much really hot weather lately? Sometimes plants will slow down and not set fruit in a spell of hot weather, as well.

What are you using for fertilizer? Could you post some pictures of your plants?

Hi
Have you thought of planting a few cherry tom's?
I have two collenders (those kitchen veg draining devices) every car boot sale has them for next to nothing,
I put 4 chains on them and they hang outside the kitchen door, They already have all the drainage holes in them so no need to drill anymore, plastic or alloy they do the job.
The wife just keeps picking these all summer for the salds etc, they just reproduce as quick as you use them.

Hi Lee 😁
All i grow anymore are determinate tomatoes. 2 or 3 different varieties. They produce all season. Some may stop or slow down a while, some will be steady producers.
On to game plan ! To warm or to cool of nites, they wont set fruit.
When they start to flower. You want to back off on the nitrogen fertilizer, and let them dry out more.
Also help them pollinate, by going out in early morning and give each flower cluster a little flick of the finger. Works !
😎😎😎

Philip, I think you must mean all you grow are Indeterminate tomatoes, if they keep producing all season.

I only grow Determinate varieties if I want to make sauce or something, so that I'll have a big harvest all at one time. We have Indeterminate tomato plants at the school garden that have been producing since October here. We have to pull them out next week, sadly, as school will be over soon and we need to shut down the garden.

Overfeeding tomatoes can also reduce production causing the flowers to fall off.

dyzzypyxxy said:Philip, I think you must mean all you grow are Indeterminate tomatoes, if they keep producing all season.

I only grow Determinate varieties if I want to make sauce or something, so that I'll have a big harvest all at one time. We have Indeterminate tomato plants at the school garden that have been producing since October here. We have to pull them out next week, sadly, as school will be over soon and we need to shut down the garden.

Determinate types seem to produce all season for me, too; maybe it's somewhat climate dependent?

Generally - but not always - hybrid varieties will produce more tomatoes than open-pollinated/heirloom types. At least, that's true in my experience.

leezinn97 said:...they are very well watered...

How and when do you do the watering?
I ask because I learned that my method of watering and the timing was actually knocking off the pollen from the flowers. Now I only water the soil and no longer do overhead watering of the foliage and flowers.

I see "Texas". I assume HOT summers.

If your plants are burning up before they've been in production for very long, well, yeah, that is a problem.

If that's the problem, can you start them earlier, indoors, or maybe shelter them under plastic so they can outside a few weeks sooner? Then they might yield more fruit before the summer Sun says: "Die, tender plants! Die, die, DIE!" (Or provide shade when it gets hot??)

Maybe look for earlier varieties, if length-of-season is too short. Smaller fruits usually ripen sooner. Cherry and grape tomatoes, fastest.

If you had not said "Texas", I might have suggested looking for "heat-resistant" varieties. But "heat resistance" is a relative thing.

Sure, there are tomato varieties that "resist the heat" when "heat" means 85 degrees to you. But if "heat" means 110 degrees where you live, well, there ain't no such varieties, that's my guess.

Do some Texans squeeze a brief, second tomato season into the fall? If you root any trimmings, you might have more plants ready by the time summer heat is less. But you might have to shelter the cuttings in the shade.

On the other hand, I always worry about over-watering. But if the plants don't look distressed, that probably is not the problem. Try one of those buckets with much-faster-draining mix. If that tomato is happier than the others, try watering less or improving your drainage.

Good luck!

Sandy !!! I think you my have got it !
Climate !!!
Humidity, maybe ?
Humidity hear, is low in summer. Temps 90s to 110 or 😬 ###
Hows your humidity in summer ?

Elaine : I grow determinate, i hate indetermate tomatoes !
WILD THINGS ! !
😎😎😎

Determinate or indeterminate -- I love them all, as long as they taste great!

Philip -- the humidity here is high, something that was really made obvious to me when we had a family reunion at our house one summer, the weather that day was exceptionally beautiful, temp maybe low 80s, and a cousin from California was sweltering due to the humidity. It seemed funny to me at the time because I assumed she would be accustomed to much higher temps, but the moisture in the air was a new experience for her!

Sandy : Yep !!! And i cant remember having a vine ripe tomato i didnt like. I like em cold.
I know the humidity thing. Central Texas whew ! Hear. We get a low pressure system, or mayde a sprinkle over summer. Oh ! It feels good, for a few minutes. Butt ! Theres allways a butt !
Sun comes out, and, temp goes up to 95 or more. Everybodys hating life for next few days.
😎😎😎

I have to agree with NJBOB, over-fertilized tomatoes grow pretty and healthy and pretty healthy, but that's it, little to no fruit. Nitrogen excess is the no.1 reason for low yields.
Just MHO.
J.R.

Regarding over-fertilizing -- for years I bought into the idea that you shouldn't give tomatoes too much fertilizer (and I'm sure that's true, but it seems to be pretty subjective). My plants struggled. I didn't get many tomatoes. Then I asked our "soil conservation guy" where I could get a soil test done; he told me to just add some triple-19 fertilizer to the garden and everything would grow just fine... I ended up buying some triple-10 (which is really cheap) and adding about 5 times as much as he recommended, and after that the garden was going gangbusters.

So -- I dunno; I'm sure there is a point of "too much fertilizer," but I use it pretty liberally without problems. (I also use a lot of my own compost, and add a lot of grass clippings and leaves to the garden every year.) Just sayin' .

My soil is already high in nitrogen so my results from using a lot of fertilizer was giant plants with not much in the way of fruit. What I do now is cow manure , compost and some 5-10-5 when planting and adding some 10-10-10 once the plant has set fruit.

Now that makes sense! We all have different soil issues, so cure the issue, then keep it at that level.