q-about-tom-plants
Zoomer44
Posts: 3,267
in Fruit & veg
Big mistake, I put up a different cane structure in the GH beds this year to support the plants as they grew. Two plants have slipped down the canes under the weight of the toms and the stems has broken at the bottom, not completely because the plants haven't died. The fruit is beginning to rippen quickly though.
Q is I don't know whether to leave the plants, see if they survive and the fruit rippens or cut my loses on these two plants, pick the fruit to rippen on a window sill and provide extra support for the plants which are left in the space the vacated plants make?
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If it were me, I would wait to see if they survive - if they don't then you will soon see them wilt, and can revert to plan B (the windowsill)
If they are broken you can hang the whole plant up (it will be upside-down, but no matter) and the tomatoes will ripen.
Zoomer, at this stage of the season you might as well make room to support the other plants. You can either hang the plants, as Welshonion suggests, or harvest the maturing fruit. There's no real difference. The plants, out of the ground, will die anyway. The harvested fruit doesn't need sunlight to continue ripening, just warmth.
Went out to see if the plants were still alive before I went to work and when I got back today. These two plants aren't wilting but the other plants in GH are just as heavily set with fruit and may go the same way, if they don't get extra support.
Know were chicky is coming from but will cut my loses and hang them upside down and put in more support for the other plants.It'll create more room for air to circulate.
Apart from these two plants caving in and one plant getting BER I'm ever so pleased with toms this year. I've got them rippening in hanging baskets outdoors which is a first
Good stuff, zoomer. Nothing better than a good crop to reward all the work and worry!
Picked more than can be eaten this evening, Italophile
. BER is on red pear.... again...not one I'll be growing next year.
Good thinking, Zoomer. The "plum" varieties - which includes pear-shaped - are more prone to BER than other varieties. No one knows why. Something in their genetic make up, probably.
I've tried red pear for two years now, I'm still picking because not all the fruit has BER, but won't be growing again, they've been watered like the other tom varieties which don't have BER...and the crop is poor.
Itaophile.Can I save seeds from the ripe fruit now, off the plants which have snapped.
Yes, given a couple of provisos. If they're hybrids, the seeds won't produce true to type. If they're heirlooms, they will produce true to type unless cross-pollination has occurred. Cross-pollination is always a possibility with different varieties grown in close proximity thanks to busy-body insects going from variety to variety and mixing up the pollen.
Thanks. Italophile. Got home this evening after being away for a few days and the two bush ones, outdoors, have done really well, one better than the other so will save some seeds, they are begining to go past their best. .