Tomatos please help!

Sapsorrow

Hiya everyone,
I could really do with some help on the tomato growing front. For the last 2 years my outdoor crops have failed despite flowering (a little bit anyway) and I have no idea why.
I filled 2 ten metre long cloches with the baby plants after putting compost in each hole and kept them covered until they were too tall (maybe 1/2-3/4 of a metre) and then let the plastic stay down all summer.
Last summer we didin't get manure delivered unfortunately so had to gamble a bit by just using liquid feeds and some seaweed powder, but the year before that we had an allotment and had the manured at christmas. We also used manure tea and organic liquid feed at that plot.
The garden now (if you can call it that) is basically an acre of grass we got ploughed and rotivated last spring, there had been cattle kept on it for years before we arrived so we figure it'd still be worth trying to grow on it anyway despite the lack of manure.
The field is circuled by trees (beech, hawthorn, wilow, pine etc) and gets great sun in the summer, the soil is dark and hummousy (we're in mallow north cork which is supposed to be fairly fertile in general).
One thing I noticed was the lack of insects, the first year the allotment was on a very windy hill and this year I just didn't see any bees about really. Would planting flowers around the beds help seeing as the field is all grass around it? If so what kinds?
I think the location might have something to do with it as I grew minature tumbling tomatoes out of a herb pot thing (the type you can grow lots of strawberry plants in too with lots of little pockets for the plants) and that had loads of tomatos, but it was round the side of the house where all our oak and beechtrees and the herb and flower garden are.
Should I try planting them further apart this time to help with pollination?
Any other tips would be great thanks!

bmaxi

With most plants the flowering mechanism is a result of the need to reproduce, so if the plant is too well nourished it will not see the need to produce flowers. Result; no flowers = no insects = no pollination = no fruit.
If the plants are growing vigourously and there is no sign of disease then I would say the problem is too much nitrogen in the soil, i.e. the soil is too rich. I would let them rough it this year, if you feel the need to feed, use a feed high in potash.

Sapsorrow

bmaxi wrote: »

With most plants the flowering mechanism is a result of the need to reproduce, so if the plant is too well nourished it will not see the need to produce flowers. Result; no flowers = no insects = no pollination = no fruit.
If the plants are growing vigourously and there is no sign of disease then I would say the problem is too much nitrogen in the soil, i.e. the soil is too rich. I would let them rough it this year, if you feel the need to feed, use a feed high in potash.

Ah thats really intersting I didn't know that, would you reccomend against utting them into manured soil also? We've had it down since last october but there's plenty of space to put them somewhere else.

lucylu

Did you harden off the tomato plants before you removed the cloche completely? (out by day and covered by night for 10-14 days) maybe the plants got a set back at the wrong time of the season.

As Bmaxi says if the growth is too vigorous there was probably right the soil is too rich where the plant puts all its energy into new shoots and less into the fruit. Did you pinch out the side shoots? If allowed to grow these side shoots will produce a lot of foliage but few tomatoes.

Chicken Run

...also the last 2 years have seen pretty wet summers. My outdoor tomatoes have been pretty poor as a result of this.

Sapsorrow

lucylu wrote: »

Did you harden off the tomato plants before you removed the cloche completely? (out by day and covered by night for 10-14 days) maybe the plants got a set back at the wrong time of the season.

As Bmaxi says if the growth is too vigorous there was probably right the soil is too rich where the plant puts all its energy into new shoots and less into the fruit. Did you pinch out the side shoots? If allowed to grow these side shoots will produce a lot of foliage but few tomatoes.

I hardened them off alright for maybe a week I took the cloche down on a very warm day I would have had the cloche down a lot for the month or two before too just as it was getting so hot in there.
I didn't think they were getting enough nitrogen becuase the leaves were kind of yellow around the edges and tips (like most things in the veg patch were) but maybe I was giving them too much of other things like minerals?
I didn't know about pinching out until they were fully grown, so while I did do it maybe it was a bit too late? Both years they were a bushy variety my mum used too, she had great success with her's in Kerry, they aren't suppost to need caning as they're so bushy they support each other. I caned one or two that were a bit floppy but the rest were very strong.

Dizzyblonde

I grow my tomatoes in plain old shop-bought compost every year and only feed them liquid food once they've got plenty of flowers. It's very important to grow them where they'll get as much sun as possible.

Sapsorrow

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

I grow my tomatoes in plain old shop-bought compost every year and only feed them liquid food once they've got plenty of flowers. It's very important to grow them where they'll get as much sun as possible.

Hi ya they were in full sun alright, I always have great success from pots it's just when I try to grow them in the actual ground I fail miserably

Dizzyblonde

It does sound as though the soil may be too rich for them.