"Gus" wrote in message ...

"MaryL" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> "Gus" wrote in message ...
>
> "MaryL" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>>
>> "Gus" wrote in message ...
>>
>> "Ed Pawlowski" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> On 8/2/2014 10:01 PM, Gus wrote:
>>>> I have 8 plants and 7 all have had a decent number of tomatoes, but one
>>>> plant has not had any. It is the plant that has grown the best and
>>>> biggest and looks the healthiest. It's actually huge-- over 6 feet
>>>> tall, and filled out well. Has had lots of flowers, but not one tomato.
>>>> It's in the same spot as I had one last year that produced many
>>>> tomatoes. I'm confused why this one plant is not growing any tomatoes,
>>>> and it is the biggest and healthiest of the lot.
>>>
>>>
>>> It is biggest and healthiest because all of its enerfy is making leaves,
>>> not fruit.
>>
>>
>> What do you suggest? What Mary said? Cutting back some of it? It has
>> plenty of flowers and has for last couple months.
>>
>> ~~~~~~
>> My first thought was actually what Ed suggested, but I rejected that idea
>> when I noticed that the plant has flowers. If it was all foliage, I
>> would suspect too much nitrogen.
>>
>> MaryL
>
> I'm going to try hand pollinating some. Not had to do before. I have
> some Qtips that I'll try using. I'm so ignorant I didn't even know
> their are male and female flowers. In the past, I just planted some
> plants and they all produced without doing much than watering once in a
> while.
>
> http://vegibee.com/index.php/hand-pollination
>
> ~~~~~~~~
> Be *very* careful if you use a Q-tip. Flowers on tomato plants are very
> small and delicate, so it would be easy to damage them. That's why I used
> a tiny paintbrush (the smallest I could find--a cheap watercolor brush, as
> suggested in the article you cited). It worked very well, and friends
> were amazed when they saw tomatoes grown inside my house during the middle
> of winter. The plants I used were actually cuttings taken from outdoor
> plants when the season was almost over.
>
> MaryL

I'm more confused. All the flowers on the plants look the same. I
don't see any that look female like the article shows. Even on the
other plants that are producing they all have what appears to be a
stamen sticking out of the flower. The flowers all look the same.

~~~~~~~~
I was never able to see the difference, either. I just used the tiny
paintbrush and moved *carefully* from flower to flower. I did not try to
trim off any blossoms. It worked well and I got more tomatoes than I could
use.

MaryL