Resurrecting this thread with a pic of the obscene tomato I picked yesterday…
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Pinocchio.
I have lots of flowers and not very many young/just starting fruits and veggies on my plants and it’s frustrating. For squash I know to look for male vs female flowers, but for peppers and tomatoes I get flowers and then… they just whither and drop off. I had this issue with peppers last year, but I thought it was because it was too hot, and this summer has generally not been (Boston area). I have a fair number of big (but unripe) tomatoes and at least one big unripe pepper per plant, so they were happy at one point.
Any ideas about what they’re missing? Nutrients? Too hot? Too cold?
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For the tomatoes at least, do you have a lot of foliage on the plants still and does it shade the fruit? Here in the east we don’t really have to worry that much about sun scald, and exposing the tomatoes to sunlight will (may?) encourage then to ripen faster. I trim my tomatoes very aggressively anyway (partially to improve airflow and also to remove old leaves that may just start to show signs of late blight or other diseases thus slowing the progression of things like that way down), but when I lived in Utah I tried to leave leaves that would shade during the hottest part of the day. But I have been advised here that it’s ok to remove more and expose them. I just did another aggressive trim on Saturday (I usually do once a week) and today I picked my first beefsteak. It was a bit early by a day or two maybe, so I’ll let it finish ripening on the counter, but I didn’t want to risk an animal getting it! First tomato!
You are right about the heat causing blossom drop, but as you said it really hasn’t been very hot this summer except that stint very early in the summer in (I want to say) June, and now it looks like a few days this week. In fact, it has been so not hot that I haven’t had any eggplants at forming until the last few days! Beans too have been slow, though the vines are now covered in flowers, so any day we’ll start having them. Cucumbers too, only just now starting to get some growing to good size (and now I have to remember to keep an eye on watering them!) My jalapenos starting producing fruit some them ago and they are reaching full size now and can start to be picked, though they aren’t “ripe” (they have not turned red yet) but the bell peppers have only just starting flowering and setting fruit, so I don’t know. Might be a watering issue? At the beginning of July I might guess that the soils might have been water logged and preventing nutrient uptake in that way, but now it’s been pretty dry for about 2 weeks (or more) so might have swung back in the other direction.
Caveat to all this is that most of the varieties I grow are things that I grew in Utah and which did well for me there in that hot, dry, non-humid climate that I used deep irrigation and deep mulch on there, which I haven’t done that so much here. I only water if we haven’t gotten an inch in a week or if the plants are looking water stressed, and I am using light mulch of grass clippings rather than deep mulch of wood chips, so in my case I don’t know if it is a variety issue, or a climate issue, or a garden issue that is driving my experience this year.
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I have a lot of foliage yes. Everything is in containers, so I still have watered a little bit and keeping the foliage definitely helps keep the soil from drying out in the sun. I will add mulch and start trimming this weekend (once it stops being godawful outside).
My sungolds are bearing excellently and keep setting new fruit, so I was confused as to why the other plants weren’t.
Tomato pics! (From early July)
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Tomato jungle! 
I guess I would try thinning foliage, only additional caveat, all my tomatoes are indeterminates, I think you wouldn’t want to do this with determinates because they won’t continue to push new growth from the top. I didn’t realize you were container gardening! I have a lot less experience in that arena, but I think adding mulch will help with the drying out even in containers, though since they are grow bags (and therefore permeable, right?) I think you still have to keep a close watch on them… (?) The years I’ve grown cherry tomatoes they have always flowered, set fruit, and ripened first for me.
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my rhubarb seemed to be doing pretty well (stalks thinner than my pinky, but looking happy given the sun and water in my yard), and then over the last two days the 4 leaves rapidly went yellow and one started to shrivel. I’ve chopped off the 3 worst and I’m stewing them up.
Heat? Water? Bugs? other ideas? (It has been hot and humid the past few days)
That is giant!
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Thanks! That is midsized from my plants.
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Is that Mortgage Lifter ( an heirloom tomato)? It’s big enough, but I’m not sure if it has enough ribs.
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I have no idea what it is. The seeds were given to me by my MIL. It is from a hybrid her neice’s husband apparently created. They are neat because when you cut them open they look like flames.
She had some last year that hit the 2 lb mark. I have one really giant one, a bunch around the same size or slightly bigger, and obviously smaller ones. Each plant produced 3-8 tomatoes on it.
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I have a lot of tomatoes, basil and peppers this year. Does anyone have a sauce recipe? I also have a lot of cucumbers so I want to try caning and make pickles. No idea how to do that and I don’t like pickles. Cucumbers need to go somewhere and my partner would eat them. I wouldn’t want them to go to waste.
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Finally getting something besides snow/snap peas.
Cherokee purple (though it doesn’t really look much like it), black krim (one of my absolute favorites), and a couple of double yield pickling cukes.
The cherokee purple was 8.5oz (241g), but there are many larger still on the vines. The cuke plants already are showing signs of cucumber mosaic virus, which is, quite frankly, butts, and one of the tomatoes has early signs of septoria leaf spot. Early July doomed us with 2+ weeks straight of rain. 
(One of the cukes was picked yesterday so it was cold coming out of the fridge and started to sweat, that’s why it is wet.)
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Finished the garden beds and paths with the latest lot of compost and mulch.
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My landlord just offered to let me replant the front garden and deduct everything from the rent. I’m tempted because if I do it myself I can make everything native. However 1) I don’t know how to do decorative plants and 2) he probably doesn’t want it to be as wild/witchy as I do. And 3) it’d be a lot of work.
There’s a ton of morning glory taking over, 5 mountain laurels (of which 3 have died and 2 are dying of some brown leaf disease), some black eyed Susan’s, 1 sunflower valiantly struggling through, and a big American pokeberry I learned was native and didn’t pull up. Oh and a 3’ tall elm sapling that needs to go. The soil is pretty nice: very loose and kind of sandy. There’s a little place that might nice for a rain garden. Before he suggested this I was considering planting some raspberries on one side.
Priorities: native to Boston area/Massachusetts, pollinator friendly, good succession planting (which the wild jungle actually does a good job of). Is this too hard or should I do it?
Oooh maybe I could do blueberries?
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I have never grown such healthy Marigold! The look fantastic. I have never needed to cut them back so I’m not sure!