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thebutcher_gw

Apple Juice for blossoms

thebutcher
10 years ago

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I have been itching to know. Can spraying apple juice on blossoms help out? Last year I had a lot of blossoms that did nothing and fell off. I also did not fertilize them, I think I over-watered them as well and just dug a 15"x15"hole and filled it with bought regular soil. (I know that I messed up in a lot of places but learned my lesson).

This year I had 1 tomato pop out 2-3 weeks on a (4th of July Hybrid) ago and no others (Others are Ramapo F-1) but have many blooms. Now if apple juice does is not good what would you recommend for it besides patience. I also heard a rumor of tums for calcium?

In the Photo is a Ramapo with the new buds on the top level I noticed this week. The ones I noticed before looked the same and I though it would of popped out a green marble by now. I also found some broke off bud stems around the plants.

For the Plant backround and the past weather:
Right after planting on May 16th they went through 3-4 nights of around 43-45F weather the week after, and the following week in 90'sF and about 6-8 inches of rain in about 3-5 days.The plants are in 20 Gallon Fabric Hydrofarm containers with a 5-1-1 mix.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I fertilized them only 2x's since planted with MG tomato plant liquid food and sprinkled the proper amount of Espoma BIO Start Plus with microch... They are due for a fetilzer but did not get a chance with all the past rain.

Thanks,
- Mr Beno

This post was edited by thebutcher on Fri, Jun 14, 13 at 14:10

Comments (4)

  • flora_uk
    10 years ago

    I can't answer your question but I'm intrigued as to how you came by the idea in the first place. Is it supposed to attract pollinators or something? Tomatoes are generally considered to be self-pollinating but you can supposedly help them along by shaking the flowers if you want to. As far as I can see your tomatoes look perfectly fine but I don't live in your area. Patience would certainly be my recommendation.

  • 2ajsmama
    10 years ago

    I would think that apple juice would just make the pollen sticky (and may attract pests). Where did you read/hear that idea?

    From what I can tell in the closeup the plant looks fine, just leave it alone (don't water any more until it dries out, and I wouldn't fertilize now, though some people do at fruit set - there was a recent thread on that on Tomato forum).

    Tums won't do anything for you. Either you have sufficient calcium or you don't (again, there's a BER thread going right now, some people use calcium nitrate if needed). The main thing in avoiding BER is consistent watering, but I know that's hard with the rain we've had lately. The good news is most of the time it's just a maturity thing and as the plant's vascular system matures it's better able to transport Ca to the fruit. I've got to say I've rarely had a problem with it, but then I don't grow in containers.

  • daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)
    10 years ago

    Spraying sugar water on any plant seems a REALLY bad idea. If you spray apple juice on the ground, it'll be covered in ants before long. Why would you want your tomatoes that way? They look pretty healthy, and they should take care of pollination all by themselves. Tomatoes don't need insects to pollinate.

    If I read your post correctly, it's a last-year problem that you're trying to cure this year. But you've taken more trouble this year with your planting medium, and you say these are just the first flowers coming out. Patience!

    Now, if it's getting very hot, tomatoes will shut down fruiting. Blooms will appear and just fall off. But I would think that Philadelphia shouldn't be that hot.

  • thebutcher
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Thanks for all your comments,

    I just took more photos this evening and saw some loose blosoms and took some photos. The first photo was just haning from a leaf and looked frayed so I opned it up and was currious and saw a little mator that didn't make it.

    The seconed one was from the same plant and looked real healthy. It dropped when I tried to shake the plant a little bit.

    you can see why I have concern (and jsut looking to see if there is a helpful solution to help deter this while it is still early) but I am aware of the maturity issue and the stress they did go through to get to this stage with the weather and such and patience is probably the best thing to have this early.

    Thanks again all for your help.
    - Mr Beno