Why are my tomatoes not ripening?

 Very strange.

I'm in eastern Virginia -- Northumberland County, along the Potomac
River.

Last year as we were building our house we planted a dozen or so
tomato plants along the back of the lot and harvested tomatoes all
summer and into the fall.

This year, I have 26 plants, all heirloom varieties.  They are in
raised beds that are filled with half-and-half compost and topsoil.

I prune my plants so there are 3-4 main stems.  I have lots of
foilage, healthy plants, no pests, and lots of green tomatoes. However
-- only two of my plants are ripening.  I have been picking an
occasional ripe tomato from these two plants for 3 weeks; the rest of
the plants show no sign of ripening although they are loaded with
tomatoes.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

 Every Man wrote:

Slow here too in northern DE.  I blame the weather as it's been cooler
and rainier than normal.

 

<http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm#North%20America%20 (excl.%
20Arctic>

 What the stations worth a look.

It's a small world after all.

Bill

--

Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA

 Bill who putters wrote:

As a global warming skeptic I got on the Heartland Institutes mailing
list and have publication of their study of the temperature measuring
stations in the US.  This is part of it:

http://www.surfacestations.org/

There are over 1,200 monitoring stations in the US and so far the group
has looked at 850 of them and found that 89% fail to meet the National
Weather Services site requirements that they must be 30 meters or more
away from an artificial heating or reflecting source.

Satellite data is more reliable:

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd06oct97_1.htm

"Unlike the surface-based temperatures, global temperature measurements
of the Earth's lower atmosphere obtained from satellites reveal no
definitive warming trend over the past two decades. The slight trend
that is in the data actually appears to be downward. The largest
fluctuations in the satellite temperature data are not from any man-made
activity, but from natural phenomena such as large volcanic eruptions
from Mt. Pinatubo, and from El Niño. So the programs which model global
warming in a computer say the temperature of the Earth's lower
atmosphere should be going up markedly, but actual measurements of the
temperature of the lower atmosphere reveal no such pronounced activity."

 

 Thanks for the post.  

Bill

--

Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA