Tips for tomato growers

[maddie]

My friend grows marigolds with her tomatoes and she swears by it! They are supposed to repel a lot of bugs. I planted them in pots and put them around the outside of my raised beds and it seems to work. I had zero pest issues this last year! I thinkI will try to plant them in the same pot with the tomatoes next season, but only a small plant.

The basil that I grew with my tomatoes got so big, like enormous. At the end of the season the basil was at least 3 feet tall. I wonder if I should have pruned it back some, but I allowed it to grow.

In both the cases if your pot/container is big enough it should work well. Basil does grow really big.. you may have to prune back and let more branches grow.. if you let it go to seed you will have a weedy issue on your hand.. this one grows like a weed.
I agree with marigolds keeping pest away.. but I sure didn't know about it enhancing the flavor of the tomatoes.

@ Claudine.. you are most welcome.

 

[iluvmario]

I have heard about this and never knew for sure which branches to pull off. I am going to try this for my summer garden. I am looking forward to larger tomatoes. Tysm!

 

[Pat]

I agree with the hint about the upside down practice of growing tomato's, I see no benefit in growing them upside down. I have one of the those pots, the hook is too short, it does not give the plant enough room to grow. This year I will try a large pot instead of the ground.

 

[mrsbatista]

great info, I never knew that, I hope that this tip will help me to grow more tomatoes this summer. I always have a huge plant but very little tomatoes.

 

[sharp square]

Guys some great information being supplied here for rookie and experienced tomatoe growers alike. I think one of the most important tid bits here is learning how to remove the suckers from your growing tomatoe plants, this can make a big different in your plants production. It is one of the things i over looked for a long time when i first started growing them, once i learned to take care of them better i have seen my yearly tomatoe harvest consistently grow.

 

[headfullofbees]

If a tomato plant gets damaged, such that its growing tip gets broken, you can train one of those sideshoots as the new leader.
Obviously, if you have height restriction, you can deliberately pinch out the top of your plant, and allow a sideshoot to take over tomato production.
Sideshoots aren't actually suckers, they are productive stems, and will fruit like the main stem; it's just that the energy will be divided amongst all the shoots, and you may end up with many small tomatoes that take forever to ripen.
Commercial growers often pinch out the growing tips and grow two sideshoots from the cotyledons.

There is a technique to pinching out these shoots which causes no damage, and leaves far less of a disease-susceptible wound than cutting: take a position such that the side-shoot is at 90% to the plant. Take hold of the plant, gently but firmly, close to the sideshoot.
With your thumb close to the joint, push the sideshoot away from you until it cracks and gives, then push the sideshoot back the other way. It should snap off. Old and diseased leaves should be removed in the same manner, but this time pushing down first with the thumb, then up.

You can also propagate more plants from these sideshoots.
Remove them in the manner I've described above when about 6" long.
Run your fingernail down the bottom 2" and gently plant it this deep in a 3" pot of very moist compost.
Keep very moist, and after 2 weeks you should have a clone plant.

 

[headfullofbees]

Tomatoes have perfect flowers. This means that they have everything necessary to set fruit, and outside, where there is moving air, there should be no problems.
Indoor growers may find that there's not enough movement of air to pollenate the flowers.
This is easily overcome, and this is how I do it:
I tie a line, taught, at about five feet in my greenhouse, then line up my (cordon) tomato plants so that the stakes form a neat row just touching the line. I tie them into that line.
Then I get another small bamboo cane and beat the line quite mercilessly until I can see all the tomatoes shaking vigorously with fear.
Treat 'em mean & keep 'em keen.

 

[dim]

 

[headfullofbees]

Bush tomatoes are determinate (they reach a certain size and stop growing) and shouldn't have the sideshoots (suckers) removed.

 

[LindaKay]

Wow, these tips are awesome! I didn't know that the suckers were bad. I will definitely also try growing a bit of basil in the pot with the tomatoes. I'm so excited about trying these tips!

 

[rosalinephillips]

Here are some useful tips I found for tomato growers. I have grown tomatoes for long but never knew some of these..

See that sucker there? Suckers are secondary branches that grow in the joints of existing branches. Pinch ‘em off. Suckers take energy away from growing tomatoes. No tomatoes will form on sucker branches.

You should also pinch off the lower branches of the tomato so that you have about six to ten inches of bare trunk at the bottom of the plant. More on why in the next step…

Read the rest here.. http://lifeonthebalcony.com/grow-delicious-tomatoes-in-four-simple-steps/

Hello Maddie,

I actually just heard about this when I was on a Home Depot site. They guy was giving some tips about taking off the bottom branches of your tomato plant so those branches aren't taking the energy from the plant that can be producing tomatoes. Although he gave that tip, you went more in to depth about the suckers, which he didn't make it real clear as to exactly what you should take off. I understand the bottom, you should take all that off, but I wasn't sure exactly what to take off the branches above where the tomatoes grow.

It seems you know a great deal about tomatoes, do you know about the zones? I'm trying to find out whether it's okay for me to actually plant my transplants now since I'm in zone 7 and is still close to the last frost which was April 15 (just this week), or should I maybe give it another week before actually planting the transplants outside.

Thank you very much for any help you are able to provide.

 

[dconklin]

Great tips I have heard about removing the suckers and the first year I did and got more tomatoes. Last year I didn't because others had told me that you didn't have to and that they never did. Last year when I let the suckers grow, I didn't get many tomatoes at all.

Another tip too is that if you are a smoker, always wash your hands before handling your plants. I have heard that handling them right after (or while having) a cigarette can cause diseases in the plants.

 

[zigs]

Hello Maddie,

I actually just heard about this when I was on a Home Depot site. They guy was giving some tips about taking off the bottom branches of your tomato plant so those branches aren't taking the energy from the plant that can be producing tomatoes. Although he gave that tip, you went more in to depth about the suckers, which he didn't make it real clear as to exactly what you should take off. I understand the bottom, you should take all that off, but I wasn't sure exactly what to take off the branches above where the tomatoes grow.

It seems you know a great deal about tomatoes, do you know about the zones? I'm trying to find out whether it's okay for me to actually plant my transplants now since I'm in zone 7 and is still close to the last frost which was April 15 (just this week), or should I maybe give it another week before actually planting the transplants outside.

Thank you very much for any help you are able to provide.

Tomatoes will stall if the overnight temperature goes below 10C so check a detailed forecast before planting out.

In the meantime you can be hardening them off by putting them outside during the day and bringing them in at night to get them used to the lower temperatures.

 

[happyflowerlady]

I read about pruning the sucker off, but I didn't do it at first , because I wasn't sure what a sucker was either. Then, I read another article that explained better, and started taking off suckers as I found them. I hate to throw anything away, so I put the pruned suckers in a glass in the window, and they easily rooted, and made me some new tomato plants, which I then planted.

 

[maddie]

I read about pruning the sucker off, but I didn't do it at first , because I wasn't sure what a sucker was either. Then, I read another article that explained better, and started taking off suckers as I found them. I hate to throw anything away, so I put the pruned suckers in a glass in the window, and they easily rooted, and made me some new tomato plants, which I then planted.

I have never heard about planting suckers or rooting tomato stems. This is news to me. Thanks for sharing this here.