3 Reasons Your Tomatoes Aren't Flowering or Fruiting

0:00 hey there welcome to geeky Greenhouse in this video I'll talk about why your tomato plants aren't flowering tomato flowers are essential if you want your plants to produce tomatoes and after all that's why we grow these plants in the garden in the first place so if your plants aren't producing flowers or the flowers that it is producing are falling off of the plant that can be a major issue so in this video I'll talk about three of the main causes for tomato flowers not forming and tomato flour drop before I get into it if you want to grow amazing Tomatoes like this beautiful plant right here we have a free tomato growing ebook which you can get instantly by signing up for our email newsletter at the first link in the description below now to start off I want to talk a little bit about tomato flowers and what they are and when they come along in the plant's natural life cycle tomato plants are self-fertile which means you don't need multiple tomato plants to fertilize one another

0:45 like you would in the case of say apples this makes it really easy to grow tomatoes you can grow a single plant on your patio with nothing else around it and just through having wind and insects visiting your plants the flowers can self fertilize and then become tomatoes tomato flowers usually start forming around 4 to 6 weeks after transplanting out into the garden so if your plants are pretty young or you just transplanted them out you may just need to wait a little bit longer for them to start producing their flowers now the exact timing of flowering and fruit production does vary based on the Tomato variety that you're growing whether it's indeterminate or determinate and your particular climate so you will have to keep that in mind as I go through this video so jumping in now the first reason that tomato flowers don't form or fall off of your plant is temperature now temperature of course is a very broad topic but to Tomatoes like it between 70

1:31 and 85° F during the day and between 55 and 70° F over night so on the high end if you're living in a climate where it's very hot it's typically above 85 during the day and it's not dropping below 70° overnight your plants May postpone producing flowers and drop existing flowers until the temperatures cool off on the other side of it if it's too cool and overnight temperatures are commonly dropping below 55 degrees Fahrenheit your plants may have similar symptoms and will drop off flowers due to the cold this is why it's so important to plant your tomato seeds and Transplant out at the right time of year in that late spring and early summer time so the plants are established when the temperatures are perfect for production now there's not a whole lot you can do about temperature but if it is really hot during the day one thing you can do

2:17 is use shade cloth over your Tomatoes it can be quite a chore but if you live in a really hot climate where it's commonly into the '90s and above 100° f it may be worth your while to install some form of shading structure over your garden now I'd only recommend doing this on sunny days above 90° F or so but it can really make a difference in the quality and overall yield of your plants overnight there's really nothing you can do the sun isn't shining so you can't shade the plants and try to cool them off that way overnight it's just a good idea to keep an eye on those overnight temperatures and understand what might be going on with your plants the second reason your Tomatoes may not be flowering is nitrogen overload this is a really common issue with newer gardeners because you think the more fertilizer the better and while tomatoes are pretty heavy feeding plants but they do have their limits especially when it comes to

3:02 nitrogen early on in their growth so let me give a really basic overview of how tomato plants use nutrients early on in their lives tomatoes do need quite a bit of nitrogen and phosphorus to get established into the ground grow a strong root system and Branch out in a healthy manner once the plants begin to flower they switch from using lots of phosphorus to using much more potassium and in fact overall in the entire life cycle of a tomato plant the plants will use more potassium than they will nitrogen ually if you give too much nitrogen early on the plant can get stuck in the growth stage and you can end up with an abundance of foliage lots of leaves and they'll look very dark and healthy but the plant may have trouble switching to the flowering stage later on so I really highly recommend following a fertilizing regimen for your potted plants and amending your soil

3:49 with the right amount of nitrogen before you transplant if you're growing in the ground so if you're growing in containers and you want to keep it really simple you can use an all-purpose fertilizer that has a ratio somewhere around 213 now it doesn't have to be those exact numbers but the ratio should be somewhere around there and you can really just use that throughout the entire life cycle of a tomato plant because it has the right ratio of ingredients for inground plants you can fertilize the same way you would with potted plants but instead I'd recommend getting a soil test for your inground plants and we have a video all about how to do this it's very simple it's pretty cheap and the information you'll get out of it is really valuable and you'll know exactly what you need to put into your garden without going overboard now that isn't to say that mature plants that are flowering don't need lots of nitrogen in fact they're using more nitrogen at this stage than they are when they're younger

4:36 just by virtue of being bigger and having more foliage it's more about that ratio and making sure you have enough potassium and calcium to go along with it but to reiterate around the topic at hand here which is flowering too much nitrogen early on can be a problem can set your plant into the growth habit which can be really difficult to break the last reason that your plants may not be producing flowers or that flowers won't turn into tomatoes is humidity again this is something that is pretty hard to control yourself in the garden but Tomatoes like it between 40 and 70% relative humidity and if you think about it 40 to 70% humidity and 70 to 85° F those are just comfortable conditions so if you're going outside and feeling comfortable chances are your tomatoes are in a good spot to produce flowers and fruits now the reason this affects

5:22 your tomato flowers is humidity affects pollination and fertilization within the flowers in order for a tomato flour to produce a fruit it needs to drop pollen which will land on the stigma of the flower inside thereby initiating the fruit to start growing if humidity is too high above that 70% humidity Mark the pollen can actually have a hard time releasing within the flow and can sort of get stuck which can hinder its ability to get to the stigma and successfully fertilize that flower if humidity is too low below that 40% Mark that's pretty dry and can actually dehydrate the pollen grains as they fall out of the flowers which can again interfere with fertilization now the only case where you can really try to do something here is if humidity is too high you can come through and prune throughout the plant which I recommend doing anyway to improve air flow

6:08 throughout the plant that will help reduce disease but can also help improve the microclimate around the plants which can be especially humid the other thing you can do is plant varieties that are well suited to your climate and I can't emphasize this enough variety selection is one of the best tools you have in your Arsenal to make sure you have success with your tomatoes so if your neighbors are having good luck with a certain variety you may just want to plant the same type of tomato because others aren't going to do as well otherwise it's really just something to keep an eye on if you notice that the humidity is really high in your area or really low maybe you live in the desert that can interfere with the success of your flowers fertilization now if you want a couple other possible reasons for tomato flowers dropping we do have an article on our website which I'll link down below which goes into a little more detail on some other possible causes behind Tomato flower drop and flowers not forming check that out if you'd like

6:54 and don't forget to get our free tomato ebook by signing up to our newsletter at the first link in the description below thanks so much for watching geeky greenhouse and I'll see you next time