What's Up With My Mater Plants?

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RustyRatRod

RustyRatRod

I was born on a Monday. Not last Monday.
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Been growing maters and peppers for the past few years in five gallon buckets, because the soil here is pretty sandy and doesn't grow very well. Had really good luck so far. But this year, the mater plants (Better Boys) look fantastic.....when I go out to water in the morning and again in the evening, they look so healthy I don't turn my back on them for fer of attack. lol But they're SLOW to produce this year. We bought them pretty big.....I'd guess a foot tall about two months ago. Now they are both over five feet tall. One plant has five or six from about 3" in diameter on down. The other has maybe four about 1" in diameter and down. I feel like they're draggin ***. I water them once in the morning and again in the evening and feed them mater and pepper food about every two weeks. We have peppers too and they're kickin butt. What gives with my maters?
 
RustyRatRod said:
Been growing maters and peppers for the past few years in five gallon buckets, because the soil here is pretty sandy and doesn't grow very well. Had really good luck so far. But this year, the mater plants (Better Boys) look fantastic.....when I go out to water in the morning and again in the evening, they look so healthy I don't turn my back on them for fer of attack. lol But they're SLOW to produce this year. We bought them pretty big.....I'd guess a foot tall about two months ago. Now they are both over five feet tall. One plant has five or six from about 3" in diameter on down. The other has maybe four about 1" in diameter and down. I feel like they're draggin ***. I water them once in the morning and again in the evening and feed them mater and pepper food about every two weeks. We have peppers too and they're kickin butt. What gives with my maters?
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Pictures would help
 
Ok here you bees. No critters on um. No withered up leaves. They look good. Just not many maters.
This is the one with the most fruit. It has probably 5-7 total but the ones in the picture are the biggest.
MATER1.JPG

Here's the bigger fruits on the above plant.
MATER1 A.JPG


Here's mater plant #2. It has probably the same amount of fruit, but none are any bigger than the next close up.
MATER2.JPG

Here is the closeup of its fruit. It has several , but this is the largest.
MATER2 A.JPG
 
Car Nut said:
They look really healthy.
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They are. I keep thinkin I'm gonna get my *** kicked by tomato plants every time I go out on the patio. They're just not growing much or many. We did have a really cool spring, so we did plant a little later, but not that much later. Maybe I'm worried over nothing.
 
mopowers said:
Are they flowering at all? Maybe insufficient sunlight?
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They have flowers all the hell over them. I know. Where there's a flower, there's a tomato. It just doesn't seem to be happenin. I might be makin much ado about nothing. Kitty says they're so big they might be pot bound.
 
RustyRatRod said:
They have flowers all the hell over them. I know. Where there's a flower, there's a tomato. It just doesn't seem to be happenin. I might be makin much ado about nothing. Kitty says they're so big they might be pot bound.
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I’d say set them out in sun better and stay with the watering and see what happens.

It’s possible your soil has ram out of nutrients for them, might need some fertilizer
 
dukeboy_318 said:
I’d say set them out in sun better and stay with the watering and see what happens.

It’s possible your soil has ram out of nutrients for them, might need some fertilizer
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Been feedin um about every two weeks. They're gettin it.
 
Rusty:

Try hand fertilizing the flowers yourself, use a Q-tip to brush a flower from one plant and rub that on one of the flowers on another (same species)
 
like_A_pike said:
Rusty:

Try hand fertilizing the flowers yourself, use a Q-tip to brush a flower from one plant and rub that on one of the flowers on another (same species)
Click to expand...
Interesting. I've never tried that. Thanks.
 
You need to thin them out a little, too much energy going to the leaves
 
RustyRatRod said:
Ok here you bees. No critters on um. No withered up leaves. They look good. Just not many maters.
This is the one with the most fruit. It has probably 5-7 total but the ones in the picture are the biggest.
View attachment 1716106512
Here's the bigger fruits on the above plant.
View attachment 1716106513

Here's mater plant #2. It has probably the same amount of fruit, but none are any bigger than the next close up.
View attachment 1716106514
Here is the closeup of its fruit. It has several , but this is the largest.
View attachment 1716106515
Click to expand...
How much sun do they get? Looks like not enough.
 
Perhaps they are a bit too healthy, when plants are getting all that food they do not pivot into reproductive (fruit) mode. All the food tells the plant to keep producing foliage no danger of dying so why go reproductive? I would stress it a bit and see if ya don’t get some maters. Just thinking out loud Rob.
 
Phosphorous helps them flower, and thinning the leaves will make them focus on the fruit production. Take a look at what commercial tomato plants look like and it's shocking how few leaves are on them.
 
Sublime one said:
Perhaps they are a bit too healthy, when plants are getting all that food they do not pivot into reproductive (fruit) mode. All the food tells the plant to keep producing foliage no danger of dying so why go reproductive? I would stress it a bit and see if ya don’t get some maters. Just thinking out loud Rob.
Click to expand...
They do have a bungload of leaves for sure.
 
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