Earlier in my blog, I showed this photo with the "team of three" flowers on one particular truss, all looking like they had pollinated but nothing else, no tomato growing. Just a shriveled anther cone and stillness:
After a few weeks, I managed to nick off the anther cone of the one on the right. About a week later, all of the sudden it started to shrivel up. I'd never seen this happen before, where all of the sepals simultaneously browned. Usually the stem knuckle goes yellow and the whole thing falls off. But perhaps having been on the truss for so long, the connection was too solid for it to drop. It looks like something straight out of a Tim Burton movie:
Well, a few more weeks after this, and the center flower started growing a tomato! This is more than 6 weeks of having just sat there, doing nothing:
Pretty remarkable, isn't it? I've counted one other tomato on this plant that also sprang back to life after being dormant for more than 4 weeks. It's an interesting thing to witness and it definitely suggests that you should never pluck off any blossoms that are just hanging around with dried anther cones and healthy sepals. They could end up growing into tomatoes at some point when the plant has the resources to spark them into action.
That also happened on my plants :) After I had harvested the first fruits the tiny ones seemed to accelerate fruit development...
ReplyDeletePerhaps there is a set amount of weight the plant is able to carry.. and my fruits are so gigantic.
Happy growing!
Yes, I'd seen something similar on my Lemon Boy, where a cluster of 4 fruits were growing on a truss with one flower just sitting there. Once two of the tomatoes neared maturity, the 5th one came to life.
ReplyDeleteNice to hear your fruits are gigantic. Are you growing in containers? What's the potting mix and fertilizer you're using?