Tips for new gardeners wanting to know why after all the hard work and care they have put into their tomatoes and pepper plants they are dropping the fruit prematurely. During the hottest months of summer your tomatoes and pepper plants will experience extreme heat stress. Your tomatoes and pepper plants will go into a survival mode and #1: Try to reproduce by dropping its fruit so that the seeds will germinate increasing the chance of another generation of tomatoes and peppers. #2: To conserve energy for the plants own personal survival. Once the temperature return to normal and your tomatoes and peppers have survived they will resume producing fruit.