(no subject)

[platypus]

I don't have pictures because I'm too lazy to shift my iPhoto library to the external hard drive and am out of space on the internal one, but I bought a bunch of tomato plants a month ago. Here's how they're doing:

• Black Krim: Growing like a weed. It's already peeking over the top of the cage I put around it. It grew visibly overnight. I think it may be plotting to take over the world. I've just read about controlling indeterminate tomatoes in containers by pruning the suckers, so now I just have to figure out what the suckers are exactly. It has flowers, but no tomatoes yet.
  
  
• Bush Early Girl: Disappointingly spindly, and not growing with any particular enthusiasm. Maybe I should've buried it deeper to begin with. I read that it's supposed to be a very compact, sturdy bush, so I didn't worry much about it. I did cage it, thank goodness, so it has some support, but it just seems so... halfhearted. It does have some flowers and a few small tomatoes starting.
  
  
• Patio: I was not going to buy another Patio plant this year, because I didn't care for the tomatoes last time (they had rather tough skin). But I found a really healthy, sturdy, bushy plant in a gallon container for 99 cents, and couldn't help myself. Now it's bigger, sturdier, and just as healthy, with a bunch of green tomatoes. It's gorgeous. I haven't even needed to stake it. I should move it a bit so it gets more sun. I don't know if I'll like the tomatoes any better this year, but anything's better than store-bought.
  
  
• Better Bush and Bush Goliath: I let these go too long in little 4" pots before I planted them in the big pots, and they were looking sickly and yellow. I took off the yellow leaves and hoped for the best, but three weeks later they've barely grown and they both look on the verge of death. They do each have some green tomatoes, so I'm hoping they'll hang on long enough for them to ripen, but I don't think I'm getting any more out of them. I had both these varieties last year, and they did much better; I know I preferred one to the other, but couldn't remember which, so I bought both again this year. Hopefully what few tomatoes I get will settle the question for next year, when I will take better care of them.

I also have white cherry seeds that I'm terribly curious about (thanks, papilio_luna, but after I bought FIVE PLANTS I thought perhaps I should wait till next year when I can give them an earlier start. And maybe I'll be better at indeterminates by then. Go, Black Krim, go!

The biggest problem with my setup is that everything has to be in containers, and I don't truly get full sun (southeast exposure, nearby walls). I don't get a ton of tomatoes, and they aren't as good as they could be. But I never tire of trying.

Comments

Overly-detailed instructions for doing something really simple.

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

BEHOLD MY TOMATO-PRUNING PROWESS!

I was once like you, cowering in fear at my indeterminant tomatoes threatening to take over the planet! I've found that after reading pages and pages about pruning, it comes down to a few really simple steps:

1. Get rid of the tomato cage. They're useless with indeterminants.
2. Buy a 6-8 foot stake of some sort.
3. Get a roll of regular ole twine and some scissors.
4. Locate the suckers by examining the main stem and observing how the branches grow off of it. The branches you want to keep will be coming out at right angles. The suckers will be bisecting that angle, growing out of the "armpit" between the branch and the main stem. Snap those things clean off, throw 'em out.
5. Pound your stake in to the pot (sooner rather than later on this, so there's minimal damage to the roots—even if the plant is currently too small to require staking) and make "figure-8" loops, loosely tying the main stem to the stake, every foot or so.
Additional Note: Examine the base of the plant. You may have more than one stem already established. Once you spend some time with the more obvious structure of the rest of your plant, you'll be able to recognise what is a secondary stem and what is a branch or sucker. You've got a choice with these secondary stems. You can pull them off, just like you would a sucker, or you can tie them up along with your first stem and prune them just as you are pruning everything else. I've gone both ways with my various plants, depending on how established the secondary stem is by the time I realised what was going on. The couple times I pruned these stems, the plants shot up about a foot overnight afterwards. But I've got a couple other plants that have two stems going, and they're coming along just fine as well. I've got greenies on all of them, currently.

I go out with a ball of twine every couple of days, snap off any new suckers and add another tie to plants that look like they're in need of it. Supposedly this method of pruning yields fewer overall fruits, but the fruits you do get are larger, sweeter, and less prone to the various things that make you toss tomatoes over your shoulder rather than eating them (rot from laying on the ground, for example). I've got 8 (eight) tomato plants, so less fruit is okay by me.