My grandfather had a massive garden and I remember one year he grew a tomato plant that was 18ft tall. That same plant produced multiple tomatoes that weighed anywhere from 3-5lbs a piece and and had 1 8lb tomato and a 10lb one. The man then turned them all into an excessive amount of sauce
@@ottlakafka3409 he would can his own stuff and make sauces all the time. He basically supplied his whole neighborhood with fresh fruits and vegetables. But yeah I remember when he was done that year he had nearly 8 5gallon buckets of sauce that then got sold locally to stores and restaurants.
@Disabled-Megatron they’re probably somewhere in his workshop. He would always keep bags labeled from every year. He grew several other fruits and vegetables and his favorite was his zucchini plants. He actually grew one so large he got a award thing for it and was on the front of the local newspaper.
Yes those suckers will grow more tomatoes however if you prune all the suckers off, you will less but have BIGGER tomatoes. Hack I learned from a widow woman. 😊
Yes, but in Texas that just means you have more split tomatoes due to the heat. I found a lot more success with smaller tomatoes and often grow only cherry and grape varieties.
Notice he doesn't say the weight difference either ..but for cherry tomatoes it wouldn't matter For big tomatoes it would, depending on the size you want.. That being said, if you trim "all" of the "suckers" you're the sucker because you won't get any tomatoes. You can clone suckers, and if you do it early enough you can end up with multiple plants that give you ripe tomatoes in stages
I'm a novice tomato grower, my biggest plant is nearly a foot tall. I was told to remove all the suckers which I've been doing as soon as their sneaky little heads pop through. Thanks for letting me know about this. 🍅🍅🍅
Just make sure they have enough feed and water. Probably better to let the tomato get to around 2/3 ft and in its final spot before you properly let them go.
To be clear, pruning the suckers on indeterminate (vining) LARGE variety tomatoes is appropriate because it takes a long time and a lot of the plant's resources to grow a large tomato. Cherry tomatoes in his example are different. They grow a lot of tomatoes all over the plant. Some suckers will grow and produce tomatoes and others will use up two or three feet of growing energy and produce nothing. You don't trim off all the suckers on a cherry plant if you want to get cherry tomatoes. That said, his trellising solution is really good.
Absolutely appreciate your experiments! I’m an amateur garden, I question almost everything I do but I often look back at your videos to see I’m on the right track
😂 I got lazy( and busy) one year and didn't prune the suckers and had the Mother of all bumper crops of tomatoes. So I stopped creating myself extra work😂 and leave them alone. Texas Tomato Cage them and thin out foliage for good airflow. Done
Who would have thought! If you leave the part of the plant that grows the tomatoes on you'll get more tomatoes! This fad of cutting everything off of the tomatoes except the top couple of leaves is really crazy.
Were they both the same type of tomato? Looks like the ones you pruned were bigger tomatoes, sort of like beefsteak, and the ones you didn't prune were cherry tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes, even though they're indeterminate, should not be pruned. There is a big difference! Also, I would be interested in knowing the weight of the tomatoes harvested rather than the number because a 110 beefsteak tomatoes are going to weigh more than 330 cherry tomatoes.
I didn't know you don't prune cherry toms! Can I prune a few just not all? I'm worried my setup won't support it all. Also, I was planning to leave a sucker or two for each of my beefsteak plants. Do you think I'll still get good flavor and texture? This is my first year gardening so I'm learning a lot!
@@allisonkarasch12 You can prune some on the bottom of a cherry tomato to plant it deep for roots and a little bit throughout to make sure it gets enough air, but cherries will produce even on the suckers. For the beefsteak, I would not leave any suckers because they just slow down production of the arms that will produce tomatoes, and pruning the armpit area of suckers provides more air throughout. If the suckers are big enough, you can put them in some water with honey, sugar, or rooting solution to develop roots and then pot them up until you're ready to plant your next round of tomatoes. I know it sounds weird because if they are suckers on one plant, they will not produce tomatoes, but when pruned and potted they can become the primary stem of a tomato plant. It's like getting free plants!
You can let the sucker get some leangth, place in water till roots grow, then cut and plant. It is also possible to bury a section of the vine, then when roots grow, cut to make a new planet
What I do is to simply plant my tomatoes in the sunny side of my elderberries. The elderberries provide the strong support and fruit on their own with no issues. The tomatoes happily obliged. Nothing to build. At the end of the season, I cut the elderberries all the way down to the soil level as I am supposed to and the next season, repeat all over again. These are American elderberries. European elderberries have a different pruning requirement.
Yeeees! Thank you! I have 2 suckers I left, and now that they're almost my height, they need help! Super easy, and solves the problem I ran into, JUST IN TIME! THANKS!!! 🎉
cut a cattle panel to the size of the trellis and let the tomatoes grow up that you can use the string to tie vines that stick out and it fare less work then stringing the vine to individual strings and picking the suckers that grow besides the 4 strings
that comment on suckers just blew my mind. im in the process of experimenting runnin 3 stems on most of mine this yr. i thought they would grow slow but they are 8 ft tall, some are as samll at 6 ft
I used the back stairs of my house to train up my tomatoes. They grew some 30 feet - from the first floor to the 3rd floor. Although they didn't receive any direct sunlight I still had several dozen large juicy tomatoes. The planter they grew in was also where my husband has been emptying my daily coffee grounds, egg shells, banana and fire place ashes.... I put the plants under the stairs and out of the sunlight because my family prefers green tomatoes over red ones, yet we still had plenty of red tomatoes thanks to the fireplace ashes... ( my sons love fried green tomatoes and green tomato chutney 😊
I’m glad you did this experiment because I don’t prune (suckers) and my tomatoes do very well. People cutting everything end up with skeletons for tomato vines. I’m like who keeps this information going because it’s wrong. I get loads of fruit from a healthy plant
Do you grow determinate or indeterminate tomatoes? That makes all the difference. The only indeterminate tomato that does not need too much pruning is the cherry tomato.
@@cookingsherry8784 no this is a crazy fad. Think about it. You're cutting off the part of the plant that grows the fruit. How will that help you grow more? My father my grandparents I myself have grown all sorts of tomatoes for decades. If you cut the part of the plant off that grows the fruit you will not get fruit. It's simple. This is a bizarre fad.
I love gardening videos because you get to see everyone disagree with each other in the comments as they provide anecdotal evidence of their grandpas grow techniques and how what they know is correct, and what you know is wrong. 😂😂😂 it never fails! Look up any “gardening” video and peep the comments 😂 people are ego maniacs
@@justemusicme the problem is there are crazy fans going around now that basically destroy your ability to grow food. You really need to apply some logic. It's simple. If you cut the part of the plant off that grows the fruit then you don't grow much fruit.
I planted cherry tomatoes and did exactly the same I plucked bottom suckers but left the top suckers. And let Me tell you I reviewed insane amount of fruits. Alhamdulilah.
I always cut suckers because they can kill the main stem. However, I let them get 4” or so first, then cut them cleanly and root them to propagate additional plants.
I need to get my brother to help me make a tomato trellis like that. Planted a bunch of tomato plants without a trellis, forgot how much they grow since we've had a few bad years in a row, and ended up with a jungle.
I have trellis to trellis, so I can make that same thing, like 5 overhead lines. I just can't get the pruning right, so trying this same idea. First video that seems to back my current situation.
Nope-- a cage will crowd the tomato plant too much when it's growing that many main stems. Uber-productive tomato plants will start having problems with too much moisture on the leaves and make them susceptible to insects.
I grew two Everglades tomatoes once. One i pruned. It was hard work, i got some tomatoes. One i let go crazy. It was no work and had really 10x the tomatoes.
I have heard of 2 ideas: 1) provide a bird bath or other source of water, sometimes they're just eating the tomatoes cus they're thirsty 2) paint red rocks and have them scattered about BEFORE your tomatoes are fruiting. The birds supposedly are tricked into thinking that the tomatoes are just more rocks. I've heard of people using Christmas ornaments too, and hanging them on the vines. I can't attest to how well they work. But I've never had an issue with birds in my tomato garden, and always provide a water bath. And we have tons of birds around, but also provide feed for them (and lots of pesky grackles, so not just songbirds). So not sure if there is a correlation there or not. Squirrels though... that's another topic!!
I worked at a greenhouse, and my boss and his father (the previous owner) had a competition every year where they would see who could grow a better tomato plant. My boss would buy the newest seeds of a Tomato called Tomato X, which produced super juicy purple tomatoes and he used this technique :)
A LOT of people told me when i first started growing tomatoes that pruning the suckers would make the plant push out more fruit as it has more energy. It's a common misconception.
@@deathbloom27 on average they will be bigger but it will depend on the variety. That's why comparing numbers is misleading. The more apt comparison would be pounds of tomato per plant
@@deathbloom27 I think the biggest misconception is that pruning is for more fruit. I just prune heavy for airflow and reduced disease issues. Which yes, does increase fruit production if you’re comparing to a dead plant. 🤷🏻♀️
Most commercial cultivars cut suckers. The tomatoes produced will be bigger. But also since they cram many plants in space it helps air circulation and limits disease
You should give a try to letting the tomato plant grow on the ground like a squash. I tried it one year and the only plant I didn't stake produced more tomatoes and was healthier.
You can take every one of those suckers and put a little rootinghormone on them and put them in a semi shaded area and have new tomato plants that will grow and produce Tomatoes after the main plant are already dying out.
But what about the quality of the tomatoes from suckers? Has anyone tested (and tasted) them to compare? I’d love to grow more but only if they come out good…
They have actually done a experiment on this apparently and have figured out that anymore the 2 main stems starts actually decreasing the yield or just not having a improvement on yield at all. So most people do 2 main stems fro large yields. 3 would be cool to try but 4 might be overkill.
PSA: TOMATOES WILL NEVER NEED A STAKE OR TRELLACE IF YOU INTERWEVE THEM! you will lose a little efficiency as they won't be as spaced out and harvesting is a little harder but its worth it imo. I never stake my tomatoes, i just grow them close to each other and "tie" their branches together (i twist them together and let the leaf nodes hold them in place)
Every year I buy a bunch of seeds or re seed ones from last year..i never know what the hell they are..and I'm lucky to get a handfull of tomatoes from each plant, cuz i'm one lazy gardener
And this is exactly why I don't grow indeterminate tomatoes but to all that do enjoy. Dwarf determinant tomato plants equals non staking and pruning..❤️👍
Don't, make a tomato basket, I grow several varieties and over 200 tomato plants...... Baskets made from fence rolls are the best support and less work
Do another experiment. Prune the suckers and plant them in their own space on a trellis I'm guessing over 100 tomatoes per plant. May be ten or more suckers...
We just cut 4 branches that are thin (not too thin tho) and stick them in a square formation (and plant the tomato where the branch is). And you just tie the 4 branches together at the top (like a tent we all made as kids). It doesn't cost much if you have a forest somewhere near you can where you can find young acacia wood (they are thin and can be cut with a hand saw). We mostly use them because they grow like weed here
Might I recommend you add two braces to each side to keep that top sill from tilting forward or backward due to the added weight you are giving the set up.
So it is the same as removing the sucker and making a new plant. The new plant made the same number of tomatoes as the tomato plant that was not allowed to keep its suckers. So either way you get the same number of tomatoes. In the end it all depends on your preference and the look of the plant. Some would prefer a pretty plant over a productive plant. Give me productivity by any means necessary.
