CHERRY TOMATOES

[Madiha Humbal]

ASSALAM O ALAIKUM,
I had planted the seeds for my cherry tomatoes in late august in containers. two of the seeds gave me healthy plants of almost five and a half feet. i think they are healthy as i was told that cherry tomato plants only go upto four feet in containers. now my tomatoes flowers are blooming, then some of them have dried off and fallen. but i have seen no sign of fruit appearing. one of them fell off a couple of weeks ago. also i was told that cherry tomatoes flowers fall off in a day or two and the fruit takes it place. but the flowers of my plants stay fresh for a week. is it normal or something is wrong with my plants. can any one help me. i would appreciate it.

here is the picture of my cherry tomato plants.



this is the picture of the blooms and one fallen off flower. (this flower fell off two days ago)

[Izhar]

How much sun they are getting?? tomatoes will require full sun for better fruiting.... most of the times first flowering bears 2-3 fruits but later on they increase the yield..

[Mustansir Billah]

Your tomato plants are healthy but they are getting less sunlight as said by Izhar sb. In container the first few flowers of cherry tomato may drop and then again there is a bunch of flowers and then they produces tomatoes. Every after few weeks I mix some well rotted manure to the container for best results.
http://www.gardeningpakistan.com/viewto ... 03&t=2924#
Picture of first fruiting of cherry tomatoes

[UMARKHANMARDAN]

Provide full sun shine.Dont feed with too much nitrogen, other wise too much growth & foliage on the expense of the fruit.If flowers drop repeatdly spray with Boron based micro fertilizer liquid fertilizer.

[Madiha Humbal]

usually i get six hours of sunlight in my patio. but in winter hardly one or two hours. i use the simple NPK 121(the grainy one) once a month on my plants and nothing else. so that means i should expect much or any fruit this season. can you please tell me when to expect the next flowering and fruiting. and what other nutrition do the tomatoes require.

[Mustansir Billah]

I would only suggest rotted cow manure and your plants will perform wonders. But you have to try placing your pots on such a spot that gets much sunlight minimum recommendation is at least 4 hours. I first fed my tomato plants with NPK 5 15 20 and NPK 20 20 20 but afterwards there were issues like magnesium deficiency and Iron deficiencies so, I reverted to natural fertilizers i.e cow much, Compost, peat moss and others.

[Madiha Humbal]

thankyou for your advice

[Asim_Nawaz]

Dear Madiha Humbal
As for your "Cherry Tomatoes" problem
1) Lack of Pruning
2) Required Full Sun
3) At flowering stage, Flowers drops due to lack of PK. Spray only PK every week this will drop flowering.
Best Regards
Asim

[Madiha Humbal]

thankyou very much asim nawaz. but by flower dropping i didn't mean that they actually drop. they bloom for almost one week and than they expire to let the fruit take their place. but as mister mustansir and izhar sahab said, not all the flower buds are producing fruit. i counted the number of blooming flowers on my plants and they are 20 in number. ten of them have expired and around six of them are showing fruit in them. the rest are just empty gaps. i wanted to ask one more thing, that my tomato leaves are experiencing some discoloration. they have some sort of white marbling on them. is it because of excess water sprinkle on the leaves or the lack of sun. also. i will be unable to move the plants into full sun as i have restricted place. so can they survive in this condition for the winter. as soon as the spring starts my patio will start receiving sunlight.

[Izhar]

The marbeling is Leaf Miner... its a pest