The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: egbert on May 27, 2010, 08:10:49 pm
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Hi
I have some salad tomato and cherry tomato plants growing that are now about 2-3 foot high. Just wondered how high do you let your grow? I was told by my mother to pinch off the top so they stop growing upwards and start making fruit, but I can't recall ever doing that before?
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have they set flower trusses?
thats when you pinch the tops out, but you need to see that theyve produced flower buds first!
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Yes I think its far too early to be pinching out the tops - you only do that once several trusses have set, to make the plant put its energy into the fruit rather than into getting taller.
Not that I have to worry about that yet - mine are only about 6 inches high! ;D
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It also depends on the exact variety. I grow Sakura which is a cherry. I pinch out the side shoots for the bottom foot or so then I let it do its thing. I never pinch out the top unless it gets too far above the crop bars so that I can't crop it. Every plant is laden with fruit, loads of trusses and the plants are 8' tall, cropping well into November, sometimes December - and this is in southern Scotland at 1000' above sea level (in a polytunnel). For typical large-fruited tomato plants you would pinch out the top in late August after 4 or 5 trusses were set to give it time to ripen the large fruit.
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For cordons growing outdoors I always pinch out the tops to encourage cropping on flowered plants probably about 3-4 feet? Depends how leggy they are I think. In my greenhouse, I have hydroponically grown plants and I never pinch them out as they can just go on and on and on (they can get as long as 30 feet)and "wind up" the spent stem as new tomatoes grow at the top. (Not sure if I've explained that clearly? ???) All a bit irrelevant as my plants are only 8inches tall at the moment.