Growing, pinching, cropping tomatoes outside
 

Hi,

just agonising over how many tomato plants to put where and consulting the
books.

Now a GroBag should take 3 tomato plants.
So if you put the contents in a big pot, the pot should support 3 plants.
But the pot doesn't have room for 3 plants.
So if you put one plant in, will this produce 3 times the tomatoes?

*** end of first phase of dodgy logic ***

According to various books you should pinch out after the nth truss (often
the 4th) and the plant will crop from June to September, and produce 3-4lbs
of fruit.

Hmmm.....

Planted two cherry tomatoes (Gardener's something - found and immediately
lost the label a day or so ago) in a big pot each and decided not to pinch
out a darn thing.
They set literally hundreds of trusses between them, and I was taking an ice
cream tub of tomatoes off every few days - 750g to 1Kilo at times.
They formed a jungle similar to a bramble bush, and I lost quite a few
tomatoes becase I couldn't get to them to pick them.
They also cropped until November (we generally have a late first frost in
Felixstowe).

Now I have some cherry tomatoes this year, grown from seed, and also some
'normal' tomatoes.

My main decision is "do I treat the non-bush tomatoes the same as the bush
tomatoes?".

Given some support (I plan to set up a trellis) I should be able to tie in
several stems as long as I don't pinch out side shoots.
This should in turn support a lot more than the standard 4 trusses.
Will this work :-)
It is not clear to me why tomatoes are grown as a single upright stem with
only 4 trusses when they can obviously set much more fruit, and (at least
with cherry tomatoes) grow them on and ripen them as long as food and water
is supplied.

It is a sad sight to see a tomato plant with no top and most of the leaves
removed sitting there in September with the last truss ripening and no cold
weather in prospect; so much unfulfilled potential.

Cheers
Dave R

--

Growing, pinching, cropping tomatoes outside
 

On Thu, 20 May 2004 18:21:26 +0100, "David W.E. Roberts"
wrote:

According to various books you should pinch out after the nth truss (often
the 4th) and the plant will crop from June to September, and produce 3-4lbs
of fruit.

Hmmm.....

The question of whether to pinch/prune tomato plants goes on and on.
This combines (in the US) with 'cage or stake' discussions. The
prune/stake contingent maintain their methods give better control and
bigger, 'though fewer, fruit. And of course, no single method is
"best" for small bush types as well as regular determinate and
indeterminate plants. Pruning is confined (here) to pinching off the
'suckers' that grow in the V of larger branches, not to topping the
plant. I find these small shoots useful 'round mid-season when they
can be removed, rooted, and produce tomatoes of their own if the
weather remains mild.

How large is a GroBag? I'm imagining something about 3' long by 18"
wide by 6-8" thick. I don't see how 3 plants could be grown with that
size base, but if it's the GroBag norm, it must be possible.

IMO, whatever works for you (or for me) is the correct method. Enjoy!