[ConfusedGardener]

Hello all,

I have a few varieties of tomatoes going this year outdoors in containers (just been potting up into 42l tubs), and they seem to be a bit late setting fruit compared to others I've seen on here. Most only started setting fruits in the last week or two, and a couple have yet to set. The fastest variety I have is listed as 57 days, but most are in the 80-90 day range.

Am I likely to see any ripe fruits this year? I'm guessing the times listed are from when the flowers go brown and shrivel.

Should I remove some of the flowers that have yet to open so that the energy goes into setting fruits that are already forming perhaps?

One thing I should also mention is that most plants have already been affected by blight. I've been removing (and burning) affected leaves, so hopefully they should do a little better than last year when most plants were covered in blight and we only harvested one or two fruit out of 5 plants.

The attached pics are from a couple of weeks ago. They are now about double the size they were then.

[JayG]

The good news is that the current warm weather will help them along nicely.

The bad news is if you're sure they have blight it's almost impossible to stay ahead of it for long enough to get the fruit to fully develop, especially given that yours are only just starting to set. I have rescued most of the crop from blighted Red Alert in past years by doing what you're doing, but most of the fruit were well on their way anyway, and were ripened indoors.
Fruits which haven't reached their 'normal' size and have yet to show any signs of starting to ripen (usually a yellow tinge) are unlikely to ripen off the plant, and you have to keep a close eye on them to make sure the blight hasn't already reached some of them.

[mumofstig]

Are they blighted.....they look fairly healthy to me 

If it's blight they'll collapse/blacken within days, so let's hope they don't.

The fastest variety I have is listed as 57 days, but most are in the 80-90 day range.

The days usually give a rough guide to the time from transplanting to tomato maturity - in other word whether they are early, midseason or late varieties. This will also depend on weather and growing conditions, of course.

[ConfusedGardener]

Thanks Jay/mum.

I'm confident it is blight, but I'll get a pic or two a bit later just to confirm. I guess that it will all depend how wet things get then? Perhaps if it's an unusually dry end to the season I might be able to get away with it?

Only one (out of 18) has it bad - the stem has a number of blotches, so I've moved it away from the rest and won't bother potting it up. I'm wondering if it's worth potting up the others though?

Not sure I understand how the transplanting date has anything to do with it - I've transplanted them a number of times so far... which one is the one that matters?

[mumofstig]

They are usually transplanted to final pots/growbags/soil when they are about 10ins tall, and sometimes that means they have the first flower truss on them.
That's when the days are counted from.

[ConfusedGardener]

Thanks mum - that makes more sense.

Got some pics a little while ago which I'll post in a bit once I've gone through them.

[ConfusedGardener]

Pics...

[ConfusedGardener]

A few more pics.

So, should I bother potting up the remaining few, and is there any sense in removing any newly formed trusses that have not yet set fruit? Currently they are in 10l pots.

[JayG]

I'd concentrate on removing suspect leaves rather than anything else (other than feeding and watering of course, taking care not to wet the leaves.)

If the plant with few leaves left (presumably because you've taken them off) and brown blotches on the stem gets even worse get rid of it ASAP.

Good luck! 

[ConfusedGardener]

Cheers Jay, will do