Hi Sheepie! Lots of rain has been falling north and northwest of us--has it been raining at your place the last couple of days? Hank, I've never used dental floss, but then I cage my tomatoes and don't generally have to tie anything. I just poke the ends of the branches back inside the cages when they try to "escape". I use various types of material in the garden to tie plants to fences, stakes or other supports, including jute twine, cotton twine, green velcro ties bought in a roll at the garden center, and old panty hose. I am a little concerned that something as thin as dental floss might cut little grooves into tender green plant tissue, though. Sheri, I think I will do another post on bugs in the garden in general, but let me say a couple of things quickly here. 1) Spiders are the absolute best thing to have in the garden because they are there for one reason and one reason alone and that is to eat insects. The spiders are your friend! Well, one year I had black widows in the garden, and I had to get rid of them, but other harmless spiders took their place and that was fine. 2) If you have a lot of pest bugs in the garden, you need more bugs and not less. Are you seeing any lady bugs or green lacewings? If so, that is great. Like spiders, the lady bugs and green lacewings are there to eat pest bugs. I bought those little bags or cartons of lady bugs at nurseries several years in a row and released them into my garden. I now have a healthy population of ladybugs and no longer have to buy any. The ladybugs and the green lacewings (I only had to release them one year to build a good population) leep most pests under control. 3) Most ants in general are good for the garden. They scavenge and remove dead bugs, bug eggs, etc. Some of our tiny native ants prey upon imported fire ants. I have two harvester ant beds right outside my garden and they are a huge help to me. I do treat with Safer organic fire ant bait for fire ants in the garden. Try to think of ants as an important part of the natural pest control system. 4) If your tomatoes have obvious insect bites on them, I would look for green tomato hornworms (I have had one monster-sized one strip an entire plant bare this week, including eating most of 4 tomatoes that were the size of tennis balls) or for stinkbugs. It is just about stinkbug time here. 5) Crickets and grasshoppers are a very complicated problem. I'll go into them on a separate post specifically about them, so it will be easy for someone to find later on if they are doing a 'search' of this forum. 6) Flies are a nuisance. I have never worried about them or tried to get rid of them, but then I am in horse and cattle ranch country where the flies outnumber the humans about a billion to one. 7) Caterpillars are complicated. The easy way to deal with them organically is to use Bt, a bacteria that kills any caterpillar, moth or butterfly that comes into contact with it. Bt is an organic product and is often found in products labeled 'Caterpillar Killer'. Because I love the butterflies and moths, I quit using Bt several years ago. Whether to use BT or not is an individual choice and I respect anyone's right to use it to rid their landscape of caterpillars. I prefer to not use it on our property, though, and just handpick caterpillars that have become a problem. It is easy to see bugs in the garden and get panicky and want to get rid of them all. I understand that. I have been there myself. When I was a young child, my dad sprayed DDT and other poisons to rid his garden of bugs. When I was a teenager, my dad sprayed religiously with Kelthane to get rid of the spider mites on his tomatoes. When I was a young woman in my 20s, with a family, home and garden of my own, my dad used Sevin dust as a multi-purpose bug killer. I tried his methods when I was in my mid- to late-20s and found they really didn't work. I started looking for a better way. It took me a few years, but I finally got it right. I'll describe it in the post I write in a few minutes about bugs. I'm not saying my way is the best way, but it is the best way for me and for all the critters who share this piece of land my family calls home. Dawn

"And isn't the point of growing tomatoes to actually get tomatoes and not necessarily just a stronger healther plant?" Yes, but you can't have good fruit production without a strong, healthy plant. It's not a matter of choosing one over the other. I start my seedlings under lights in the basement. The first leaves of those plants are pretty nice, but nowhere near as big and healthy as the leaves which develop later when the plants are growing in the ground under sunlight. Yes, I do harden off my seedlings. But a leaf which has completed it's growth under lights on a small plant will not resume growth and become as large and lush as those which will grow outdoors later on a large plant. Once the plants are outdoors they immediately begin to new leaves which are suited to the new conditions. So, when the time comes to set out the seedlings, the oldest (lower) leaves have served their purpose. New, larger, healthier leaves grow quickly at the top of the plant and take over the role of making food for the plant. Because tomatoes readily form adventitious roots, I remove the lower, less productive leaves and plant deeply. I have never understood the concept of one part of the plant robbing other parts of energy. I believe roots, leaves and stems support each other mutually and must grow proportionally. One part of the plant does not succeed at the expense of the others. If it were so, the ideal tomato plant would be a bunch of leafless, stemless, rootless fruit sitting on the ground. Jim This post was edited by jimster on Mon, Jun 3, 13 at 22:13

What do you mean "fed and watered as required"? The number one reason for big plants and no fruit is too much fertilizer. The number 2 reason is that the plant in question has been consistantly at 90+. Most tomatoes won't set fruit when it is that warm. If possible, get them a little shade in the middle of the day when it's that hot- a shade cloth or row cover works for this.

This is my first year with a veggie garden in a long time. I have massive plants. Only my Sun Gold cherry have fruit. The rest are starting to flower, but no other fruit. I was really bummed... I am hoping the other plants catch up, since they have finally started to flower a bit. I am in NJ, I don't know where you are, but I contacted my local master gardeners and they gave me some info. I will paste it here, and maybe it will help. They said it could 2 different things. 1) Weather  we have experienced 2 of the conditions that make tomatoes produce foliage but no fruit: heavy rainfall, high temperatures. 2) You may have too much nitrogen, and if so, you should stop using any fertilizer, unless you chose one that has 0 as the first number. I was certain it was the Nitrogen, but now thinking about the weather, they may have played a big factor in my plants production. We had SUPER hot weather all of June and when it wasn't really hot it was raining like crazy.