Trusses on outdoor cherry tomatoes
 

Variety this year is Sungold, a golden cherry tomato.

At various times I read that you should stop the plants at 5, 6, 8
trusses. A quick search today finds loads of advice about limiting the
number of trusses.

My haphazard gardening means that for the first few weeks I train the
plants and pinch out, then something (such as a holiday) intervenes and
any detailed care goes by the wayside and friends just water them.

I've never really subscribed to the view that you can only grow a limited
number of trusses and at the moment we have around 30 trusses with
maturing fruit across two plants, we have already gathered quite a lot of
fruit, and there are still flowers forming new trusses.

The latest trusses are looking a bit small but that is probably due to
lack of feeding.

I have read that ripening stops below 20C but again in the past I have
grown outdoor tomatoes up until the first frost (which can be in December
in mild years).

A couple of side shoots were allowed to grow a bit then pruned and potted
on, and these are going great guns in a friend's garden. The friend being
a better gardener, these have much larger fruit but when we go round to
water them I'm going to count the trusses. I suspect there are more than 6
per plant.

We are in Suffolk so plenty of sun and a long growing season.

How many trusses do you grow?

[Just remembered a TV programme which showed a nursery on Jersey (I think)
where they kept the plants growing upwards on a line and just let the
stems down in a circle as the growing point got higher, effectively
continuous cropping.]

Cheers



Dave R


--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 7 Pro x64

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Trusses on outdoor cherry tomatoes
 

On 04/09/2018 16:24, David wrote:
Variety this year is Sungold, a golden cherry tomato.

At various times I read that you should stop the plants at 5, 6, 8
trusses. A quick search today finds loads of advice about limiting the
number of trusses.

My haphazard gardening means that for the first few weeks I train the
plants and pinch out, then something (such as a holiday) intervenes and
any detailed care goes by the wayside and friends just water them.

I've never really subscribed to the view that you can only grow a limited
number of trusses and at the moment we have around 30 trusses with
maturing fruit across two plants, we have already gathered quite a lot of
fruit, and there are still flowers forming new trusses.

The latest trusses are looking a bit small but that is probably due to
lack of feeding.

I have read that ripening stops below 20C but again in the past I have
grown outdoor tomatoes up until the first frost (which can be in December
in mild years).

A couple of side shoots were allowed to grow a bit then pruned and potted
on, and these are going great guns in a friend's garden. The friend being
a better gardener, these have much larger fruit but when we go round to
water them I'm going to count the trusses. I suspect there are more than 6
per plant.

That is also a handy way to stagger production (and plants for free).

We are in Suffolk so plenty of sun and a long growing season.

How many trusses do you grow?

Depends how big the plant has got. Some of mine have got about 8 trusses
at the moment but the lower ones are now empty having ripened.

Half a dozen with growing fruit on is probably a reasonable heuristic
but if they are growing strongly then they can support more.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown