What To Do With Blooming Tomatoes?

The tomatoes are just about 6 weeks in the garden and they are… large. Generally speaking, an indeterminate tomato doubles in size each week early in its cycle, then they pretty much keep growing until you or the frost tells them to stop. This is certainly the fastest I’ve seen my tomato plants become gargantuan.

Early on in their lives (in some cases before transplanting) they began blossoming. I did what most gardeners do at that point – begrudgingly plucked the flowers. I wanted the plants to become established, secure their roots, throw out some leaves to catch some rays. The inner workings of vegetable plants change once flowers emerge. Reproduction becomes more of the singular focus (my own flowers emerged at about age 13!) and that means the plant system begins giving itself over to the fruit.

So, I snipped away those early flowers. It’s still a bit early, but… I’ve got not just blossoms, but several tomatoes growing

Roma

The romas, a much earlier determinate variety, on the front side of the garden are fruiting like crazy. No worries there. The little cage I used for this plant is probably insufficient, but I’ll just stake up stray vines. This plant’s brother is in a slightly different spot and is much more insufficiently caged. It’s producing, but I’m not banking on its long-term survival.

For the indeterminates.. yikes. Big freaking plants. German Johnson is like a very tall guy right now. A few blossoms and one plum sized fruit that is growing each day. Of the five Brandywines I’ve got, they all look very healthy with just a few blossoms each. One of them is already sporting several tomatoes ranging from acorn sized to.. bigger acorn sized, to maybe a raquetball.

Brandywine

Purple Cherokee has a dusting of blossoms and several frutis. I’ve got two Mother Russia and one is healthier than the other and has a few fruits going. The Trophy plants (2) and the Early Girl (1) and the Caspian Pink (1) are doing okay, but no fruit.

Purple Cherokee

The cherry tomato plant is a freaking monster – it’s got clusters of fruit all over it.

Cherry

At this point – because I am in the midst of the newly-typical Connecticut summer (hot and very humid, humid at night, fog/mist in the morning) and the extra whammy of limited sun, I am worried about fungal/bacterial diseases. Wet plants that stay wet breed ick. For most of these plants, I’ll pull off a few of the leaves and stems at the bottom of the plants. I’ll wait to make the determination, but certainly the lowest leaves that I haven’t already pruned can go. This will improve air circulation. Ick usually starts at the bottom of the plant and I’d prefer to not give it anything to latch onto yet.