Tomatoes not growing

[yardiron]

This is my 31st year growing tomatoes. Over the past years I've dealt with various insect issues, fungus, and ground hogs. But this is new.
I got a late start this year due to the cool spring temps. My plants were taller than usual when they went in the garden this year.
They got planted on June 10th. Its now July 22nd and they all look exactly like they did the day I planted them.
Not growth at all. They look healthy, green, and appear to have no issues but they're not growing.
The soil is the same as always, at the end of the season I turn in a few buckets of compost, along with some shredded leaves. In the spring, I till the garden turning in a bag or two of dolomite lime. Each plant gets planted in a cage, I dig a deeper than needed hole, dump in a scoop of lime, then some 10-10-10 fertilizer, some dirt, then I set the plant in place and soak the hole well and fill it in. I bury the plant up to the first real leaves.
I've done this for 31 years. The soil test fine. The seeds I used were FM, two packs of seeds, and it seemed like every last one germinated. I had five flats of seedlings. I planted the biggest and strongest looking plants first. Then the next batch went in 10 days later.
Plus I put some in a new location two weeks ago.
While in the flats they're watered and fertilized with Miracle Grow. Its worked well for years. In years past I've picked my first tomatoes by the first or second week in July.

Yet this year, I've got 36 duds?
I could see if they looked sickly or yellowed but they look great, they're just not progressing.
The weather here has been hot this month. The soil is well watered and we've had a good bit of rain lately.

I also direct seeded three packages of string beans, two 25 ft rows. Only one plant emerged and survived, a second came up but looked weak and died off in a few weeks.
I also direct seeded Okra, I got two plants out of five packs of seeds.

What is growing without any issue is some sort of pale green grass that grows a foot every day, I've been ripping it out daily for months along with some sort of vine that is traveling from the neighbors yard. Its been so bad that I've given up on weeding the isles between the rows every evening, I run a small tiller down each row once every few days to chop up the weeds.
The tomato plants are mulched with chopped weeds.

 

[MiniOrchardDude]

Please provide us a picture to better understand.

MOD

 

[yardiron]

I took this Sat morning, the paper is to keep down weeds. I water with both low sprinklers and soaker hoses on a daily timer.
Something I didn't mention earlier was that I had to replace two plants which appeared to cut off about 2" from the ground, when I pulled up those two plants, despite being stuck over 6" in the ground, there was only a golf ball size ball of roots that spread out on the surface. Almost no roots going deep.
When I pulled up last years plants, they looked like small tree trunks with deep roots going over a foot deep.
The upper layer of the whole garden is a mix of ground leaves, last seasons grass clippings, and clam shells mixed together.
I've had to add a ton of lime or anything to increase calcium over the past 11 or so years. I've also used the same lime and fertilizer for the past 22 years. Last falls soil test came back saying I still needed to add lime so I tilled in two bags last fall, and a full bag in the spring when I tilled a week before planting.
The soil is sandy with good drainage. I've treated the plants with Sevin powder after finding those two plants cut off. I was thinking that if it were some sort of cutworm, the Sevin would end it quick.

 

[MiniOrchardDude]

Since you mentioned adding lime have you checked the PH? Lime increases PH levels. I prefer to use gypsum to add calcium. Gypsum has little change in the PH. PH is important for nutrient up take.

Here is a clip of what high PH does:
To summarize, a soil pH that is outside the optimal range for tomato plants can make certain nutrients less available for uptake, and in some cases, make other nutrients more available which can cause toxicity, leading to stunted growth, discolored leaves, and poor fruit production.

MOD

 

[YumYum]

That looks like a great place for slugs and cutworms to stay during the day. Get rid of the news paper or at least put some mulch on top of it to close off the dark caverns.

I cant really see the plants but from here the color of them looks fine.

 

[yardiron]

PH is 6.5.
I usually add leaf mulch atop the paper once the plants gain some size. I then loose the lower leaves to the keep the plants off the ground.
They do look just fine, but they're not growing. They haven't gained a single new leaf or branch since I planted them.

I've had plants that didn't make it before, but they either failed soon after planting or were over run with insect damage early on. But I've never had them just sit there with zero growth. I should have been seeing blossoms by now, instead I just have short healthy but stunted plants. From the same two flats of plants I planted two in a couple of huge pots up by the house, those too are not growing. The dirt in those is completely un-adjusted. I stuck the plants in a hole and feed them with Miracle grow liquid fertilizer. They too look exactly the same as they did over a month ago.

The only thing different this year is that I did all one type of tomato, usually I do a row of Better Boy, a row of plum tomatoes, and a row of Early Girl. But since we had a late start due to cold temps here I didn't do the Early Girl and the plum seedlings didn't survive even in the starter flats.

Summer is half over, I normally have seen at least a few tomatoes on the vine by now.

I also have a row of bell peppers that aren't growing right either, but my long hots and jalepeno peppers are huge and loaded with peppers.

 

[emcas]

I’m having the same issue with my bell peppers. My tomatoes finally grew when the heat in my area died down but it’s been a frustrating year. Very hit or miss.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Heat levels and light are the usual suspects. Especially where Jersey only has one season.But you are pretty far north and cool temps will stall them out from growing. Check your weather history. Below 60f nights and they get stalled down here in Alabama. Plus as of this Aug 25 date we have already lost 1.5 hours of daylight. July 23 is one month after your plants should have been well matured and fruiting. You basically planted for an in the fall production since june 21 or so is the summer solstice and the change of seasons. My cherry tree lost all of its leaves at the beginning of this August month as it reads the onset of the cooling season.

 

[yardiron]

My bell peppers all died off, each plant produced one deformed pepper and then died. My cubano peppers never produced a full size pepper, they were looking good for a while, got to about 20" tall then quit growing and just died.
The row of long hots right between them is doing okay, but they stopped putting on new fruit now and don't seem to be maturing what is on the plants.

The tomatoes have gotten to about 22" tall, a few have a couple blossoms but none seem to be progressing into tomatoes. The blossoms are just sitting there. Two more of the plants in cages were stripped completely of all their leaves about a week ago, with no sign of any tracks or any debris around the plant. I hit them hard back in July with Sevin after a few others turned up the same way when they were small. I've found no signs of worms or any other bugs though. I even went out there at midnight a few times to try and see what's going on but on the nights I'm out there no plants get damaged. The whole garden is caged in with chicken wire, top and sides, with the sides buried 2ft into the ground. The gate has a step over threshold with buried wire beneath it. The gate itself is an steel mesh safety gate from an old factory with 1" holes in the mesh. I can't imagine what could get in there that could consume an entire tomato plant in one night and leave no signs of tracks, or bits of plant on the ground. The plants look like someone chopped every leafy end off the plant with a sharp knife on an angle. I put a game camera in the garden and so far all I've caught on camera is a few shots triggered by the neighbor mowing his lawn next door.

We had a nasty hot spell last month, most of July was in the 90's with high humidity, but that's over now and we're seeing 84° days with super humid nights in the mid to high 60's. It was 64° with 95% humidity this morning about 5:30 am. Its supposed to top out at 85° with 70% humidity today. We've been light on rain, there's been a few hard but short storms here and there but I've been watering for an hour each morning.
Next week they're calling for cooler temps with highs in the 60's. It feels like the weather is turning early here. We had a late cool spring with lots of rain, then a month and a half of blistering hot temps and now its cool enough at night to need a light jacket already.
We've always had humid weather but there's been no relief at all this summer despite the lower temps.

Even the grass isn't growing much, I've ownly had to mow the lawn five times so far this year so far, its been two weeks since the last mowing and the grass still shows the stripes from the last cutting and no new growth. I've never seen that here before, ever. I've seen the grass slow down in the heat but never just not grow. Its green and healthy looking but its barely growing. It only seems to grow after it rains. Since the lawn has been nice and green, I've not been watering the grass at all.

The tomatoes though have me stumped, the ground is well irrigated, they have plenty of fertilizer, and the PH is dead on but they look stunted.
Something that I've not figured out is why so many plants failed early on. They were growing out of control in trays, but as soon as they got into the ground about 1/3 of them just withered and died. Those that withered looked like they had been starved of water, but they were not. When I dug them up, the lower part of the plant was gone, despite being planted 6" deep.
If it hadn't happened to both those in planters and those in the ground, I'd have suspected something chewed off the roots but those in the pots were the same way.
I had put 8 plants into 10 gallon pots up near the house, those pots sit on pavement with soaker hoses. The dirt was dug from a load of mushroom soil I had dumped outback a few years ago. Out of 8 plants in pots, 7 died the first night, withering away and drying up in a day, one took off and is about the same size as those in the garden, and one never grew at all, then one night all its leaves were gone. Each of those pots have a chicken wire cage over them so it wasn't a deer or ground hog. That plant was in a pot 20" tall, atop a concrete curb and the plants were 15" tall when planted. Not a leaf was left the morning after they were planted. Yet they sat on the step untouched in the flats for a week before I put them into the pots and were fine. The soil in the pots was sifted before they were filled, and the pots have only small drain holes, too small for a mole or vole to get into the pot. I dumped one pot out in which I found one plant with no roots and found no signs of any cut worms or larvae in the soil. Plus, they were dusted with Sevin at the time of planting. I've not seen many critters that will eat a plant covered in that stuff, not even ground hogs.