I have been gardening for a few years, mainly flowers and ornamentals but this year my son asked me to grow a cherokee purple tomato for him. I’m in zone 8b and despite putting this plant in a pot kind of late in the season, I have been babying that thing, hand watering, fertilizing, protecting against sun and bugs. However this diva plant gave me exactly ONE tomato that seems to be growing soooo slow. I am getting a little tired of babying this plant and it just seems such a waste of water and fertilizer. The thing is, I know very little about tomato growing and I don’t even know if this plant will even bear more fruit. I know our first frost date is still months away so I want to keep trying because my son asks for so little. So I wanted to ask for your advice on whether there is even a chance to get a harvest at this point.
by Fordeelynx4
4 Comments
I think your season is pretty much over. You can basically stop doing anything and see if it ripens.
Cherokee Purple are tough in a lot of areas because they need pretty specific conditions to set fruit. I gave up on them years ago because, like you, I was only getting one or two fruit per plant.
As others have commented, Cherokee Purple is a challenging variety and not very productive even under the best of circumstances. From the pictures, I suspect that you pruned harder than necessary, but mostly it’s just a difficult variety. Next year will be better!
It looks like most of the leaves have been pruned off.
I’ve been gardening for 10+ years (and made lots of mistakes in my time). My guess is you pruned way too much and fertilized with something with too much nitrogen. Just a guess. But you should definitely try again next year! Leave the leaves, and try Jack’s Classic Tomato FeEd