Backyard Farming the Natural Way

Well the tomatoes which I just staked are starting to load up with blossoms, and I even have quite a few fruit. However, one thing that I notice is that a few of the heirloom varieties are dropping most of their blossoms.  Seen here on the left is one nice Black Krim heirloom, but most of the surrounding blossoms just fell off. I have also noticed the same thing happening with two of my Kellogg’s Breakfast heirloom tomatoes.

In contrast, here is a sungold cherry tomato growing right next to these and all the blossoms are transforming into beautiful tomatoes. My Bloody Butcher, Arkansas Traveler, and Isis Candy heirloom tomatoes also seem to be setting fruit without much flower loss.  Therefore, accurately determing the reasons for blossom drop can be rather tricky.

Amonst the reasons normally given for tomato blossom drop are: 1) Too much nitrogen. 2) Temperatures below 50 deg F and above 75 deg F.  3) Insufficient pollination.  4) And too frequent and light watering practices. In considering all of these factors, my experience causes me to doubt the temperature range in 2,  as I have seen tomatoes set fruit well outside of these ranges. I also don’t think that it is too much nitrogen as I use natural fertizers and my other tomatoes (under the same conditions) are not dropping blossoms. Therefore, I am going to assume that it is a combination of pollination issues and also genetic characteristics of these particular plants.

Even though tomatoes are self pollinating, the pollen still needs to be ”moved around.” Because the bees have not been abundant this spring, I will take an electric toothbrush and apply it to the plants for a few moments every couple of days. My past experience has also shown that many times plants will just mysteriously start setting when at first they didn’t. Another suggestion that I have read about involves letting the plants get just a little water stressed and then watering thoroughly (stress sometimes aids plant reproduction).  In fact, too frequent and light watering can lead to fruit drop and other problems with cracking/splitting etc. I hope this information helps should you be experiencing blossom drop on your tomatoes! Also, should you have any helpful ideas on this subject, please comment.

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