General Tomato Question about Indeterminates

[TnTiger]

All of my tomato plants are Indeterminate and due to the heat, they've all quit flowering and aren't setting fruit. I expected that unfortunately. What I'm wondering is whether to expect them to perk up and start producing again after we get some cooler wetter weather this week. We've had 16 days of 95+ degree weather and 11 of them were 100+ and no rain. The next 10 days is supposed to max out at about 91 degrees with chances of rain throughout the period. Should I be hopeful that I might get another wave of tomatoes from these plants?

[MVNewf]

Yup...........

[TnTiger]

Oh good . . . I've been loving my fresh tomatoes but seeing the future supply dwindle and getting a little sad. Hopefully I can keep them going!

[fugacity]

Mine already are. Lots of flowers at and above ~3' on the plants, new growth looks healthy. New fruit setting. Looking good if the temps hold for a little while.

[hippioflov]

We had a hot and dry year like this a while back and I tried something kinda radical for me. I cut all my roma tomatoes back by 1/3 during the heat. I continued to water them a little. Once the heat broke and we got some rain, the tomatoes bloomed and set tons of tomatoes. As a person who prefers to just let things grow, this was difficult for me to do, but it did seem to work. So far this year, I've not been desperate enough to try this approach.

[BalconyFarmer]

That's the advantage of indeterminate tomatoes--once conditions improve, they'll start setting fruit again and continue to set fruit until disease or cold kills them.

[TnTiger]

This is good to know! We had a little rain last night and lots more today (I just got a thorough soaking while coming in from lunch) and the temperatures have dropped! The next 10 days or so look good with good chances for rain and wonderful temps in the upper 80s and lower 90s so I'm very hopeful that all of my plants are going to resume production for me!

[Blanesgarden]

But,
The size is reduced.
By making clones from the suckers, You can actually reproduce that plant and still have the orriginal size fruits come back in the fall.
I guess its too late for me to say this now huh?

[TnTiger]

Originally Posted by Blanesgarden

But,
The size is reduced.
By making clones from the suckers, You can actually reproduce that plant and still have the orriginal size fruits come back in the fall.
I guess its too late for me to say this now huh?

That's ok - I'll deal with the smaller sized fruit as long as I get a few.

I've read about rooting the suckers and want to try doing it. It is probably too late to do it this year but if I can figure out where to put the "clones" I may do it next year. I just don't have enough gardening space to do everything I'd like to do. In fact, I just dug up my Bonnie Grape plant and put in a Cherokee Purple seedling that has been languishing in it's starter pot since May. It's in a 20 gallon pot and I have no idea whether it'll do anything but since the Bonnie Grape was about done I decided to give it a try. I think my husband is starting to worry that I'm going to dig up more of his grass next year! (And I am going to if I can get my son to do the heavy work for me!).