I have had some good success growing tomatoes over the years, but I have not had the discipline to manage them correctly. I don't remove all the suckers soon enough and as soon as they start showing flowers I tend to leave them on the plant. After all, it is just trying its best to make me nice tomatoes and it seems a shame to waste all that effort.
As a result, at the end of the season, I have tomatoes everywhere, on the ground, getting squashed underfoot, or hiding in a tangle of overgrown but undernourished plants. So this year I'm going to be disciplined.
I have planted the tomato plants closer together so that it will be vital to prune them properly. The problem is that I don't have enough stakes for all the plants that now fit in the space. So I am trying the suspended string method. I have never done this before, because I am suspicious of it, but I have seen that people do use it and it seems to work. So I built a bamboo frame this morning and dropped strings from it. We shall see if all this turns out correctly.
1 comment:
Mark, the suspended string method is dead easy - just tie the string near the bottom of the plant, attach it something a way up - say five ft, and as the tom plant grows, just twirl the stem around the string! I've done this for many years, and it always works!
My problem this year, is growing a preferred French variety, Super Marmande, where there is bifurcation of the main stem, and they go all over the place, so keeping an eye on the number of trusses is a real challenge!
I'm not really worried, as I have over fifty plants, and some will get a bit 'fed up', but seeing how toms are grown commercially, and picked by massive harvesters, they'll all get used up in some way or other!
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