SCs inability with tomatoes

Re pollination of tomato flowers - I give the canes, or the trusses a little shake to help them set. I feel a bit responsible for your lack of tomatoes if you've only grown Rambling Red Stripes this year. They do need sun to ripen - the more sun they have the less stripey they are. One side of the tomato in the sun may be mostly red, the side in the shade will be greener - but they're still stripey. Hope you get to eat one soon.

They are self-pollinating in that the flowers don't need another plant for pollination, but the pollen still needs to drop from the stamen to the stigma. Usually that's helped by the wind or bees. In a greenhouse/polytunnel you don't normally have enough air movement for proper pollination. Commercial growers release bumblebees in to their giant greenhouses for this reason, I often see them in our greenhouse too.

Tomatoes have an optimum range of temperature (15-30°C) and relative humidity (60-85%) for proper pollination. Above 32°C the pollen becomes sticky and doesn't move properly. I have a temperature and humidity sensor in the greenhouse and I can see on one hot day in August the temperature got to 32°C and the humidity was 45%. Dumping water on the paving slabs barely made a difference, so I'm looking to stop the greenhouse getting too hot with shade netting. Gardeners in places like Texas don't bother growing tomatoes during the summer months, it's just too hot. 

I have one variety which hasn't produced any ripe fruit yet, it's Honey Drop from the seed swap, they're just sitting there on massive trusses barely doing anything!

Isn't Honey Drop a yellow tomato? Give them a squeeze and see if they're soft, they look ripe to me.

Re pollination of tomato flowers - I give the canes, or the trusses a little shake to help them set.  I feel a bit responsible for your lack of tomatoes if you've only grown Rambling Red Stripes this year. They do need sun to ripen - the more sun they have the less stripey they are. One side of the tomato in the sun may be mostly red, the side in the shade will be greener - but they're still stripey. Hope you get to eat one soon.

Don’t feel responsible. It was my choice to only grow one variety and to choose that one. I had many many different varieties I could of chosen 

They are self-pollinating in that the flowers don't need another plant for pollination, but the pollen still needs to drop from the stamen to the stigma. Usually that's helped by the wind or bees. In a greenhouse/polytunnel you don't normally have enough air movement for proper pollination. Commercial growers release bumblebees in to their giant greenhouses for this reason, I often see them in our greenhouse too.

Tomatoes have an optimum range of temperature (15-30°C) and relative humidity (60-85%) for proper pollination. Above 32°C the pollen becomes sticky and doesn't move properly. I have a temperature and humidity sensor in the greenhouse and I can see on one hot day in August the temperature got to 32°C and the humidity was 45%. Dumping water on the paving slabs barely made a difference, so I'm looking to stop the greenhouse getting too hot with shade netting. Gardeners in places like Texas don't bother growing tomatoes during the summer months, it's just too hot. 

I have one variety which hasn't produced any ripe fruit yet, it's Honey Drop from the seed swap, they're just sitting there on massive trusses barely doing anything!

temperature maybe a little on the low side at times. But I’m nailing humidity      . Quite possibly a little too high regularly. Here’s my tomatoes. First photo is the outside plant other photos are various shots of the plant in the tunnel.
I think they’re some of the best I’ve grown in a long time or would be if they’d ripen. I cut back some of the leaves of the tunnel plant a couple of days ago to try and help them.

                     

I feel better now that I've seen them, SC. They do look good. Do I detect a spot of light green/yellow in the last photo - the precursor to turning red.

I feel better now that I've seen them, SC. They do look good. Do I detect a spot of light green/yellow in the last photo - the precursor to turning red.

They can’t be far off turning    .

Isn't Honey Drop a yellow tomato? Give them a squeeze and see if they're soft, they look ripe to me.

They're hard and the skin is so tough I had to stab it with the knife to get through. Weird mix of light yellow and translucent. Disgusting taste. Sat like that on the plant for weeks with no change in colour. Very weird!

Unbelievably frustrated. Had to throw my  first almost ripe tomato away along with lots of green ones. Because they’d been slugged or caterpillars. Picked off 3 feet caterpillars at same time. A massive slug was just getting comfortable to start munching when I went in to water this evening. He was removed in a very undignified and violent manner!   

Then I did this

   

Every bit of copper pipe I had. Even borrowed some from pumpkin! Fingers crossed I manage to pick one whole tomato. That all I want . Just one!