Too many tomatoes not enough leaves?

[culdeus]

I've got this old merced-ish tomato plant (that's what I'm told to expect) that has been passed down generation to generation (hereloom?sp?). I think it forgot to make leaves in it's old age. The other 10 plants of various varietels have a normal canopy to protect my fruit.

Is there anything I can give it to make it wake up and produce leaves before the 60+ tomatoes growing on it burn to a crisp in 2 weeks?? I'm serious when I think it has more tomatoes than leaves.

I've read thru Texas Org Gardening but HG doesn't have a specific recomendation for this particular issue, which I imagine is somewhat odd.

:roll:

[dragonfly]

If your other tomatoes have the usual amount of leaves, I expect the problem is not a need for nitrogen, so, that probably means you need to construct some sort of shade to help protect the tomatoes. You could use a cattle panel (cut up into pieces with bolt cutters) to construct a frame that would fit over the entire plant and cover the whole thing with dark gray or black window screening material. You could probably also use a cheap grade of burlap that would let some light in, or a heavy grade of row cover. That's the only thing I can think of to help with your particular problem.