Plant - What to do?

[AlittleSalt]

There is one plant that has taken just about every kind of abuse storms can dole out. It got blown off the support and twisted in the wind, been hailed on, gotten too much rain for too long and is not looking well at all. It is a Big Beef Plant. If it didn't have tomatoes on in it - I would have pulled it up after the storm that ripped most of its branches off - a month ago. The tomatoes are not getting any larger.

In the pictures, the leaves shown are all that are left.

I'm thinking the best thing to do is pull the tomatoes and then take the plant out. If this was your plant - what would you do?

[ginger2778]

I would let it keep growing, unless you have a replacement ready to go. To me it doesn't look all that bad. It has a growth tip, I think it can recover. You have a longer season to let it, don't you?

[AlittleSalt]

Until mid to late July.

I'll be starting Fall garden tomato seeds in a couple of weeks, so it still has two months.

[Gardeneer]

I would take extra care of it and give a second chance in life, for being so tough and hanging in there.

Gardeneer

[Worth1]

Pull the tomatoes and let it recover.
They will get ripe on their own.
Worth.

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Pull the tomatoes and let it recover.
They will get ripe on their own.
Worth.

I agree, pull the fruit, but leave the plant. Good suggestion, Worth.

[AlittleSalt]

I agree with you all. I will pull the tomatoes and give it a better chance.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by AlittleSalt

I agree with you all. I will pull the tomatoes and give it a better chance.

You will be amazed at how fast it will take off after pulling the tomatoes.
One of the reasons I grew so many plants this year was to experiment with several different growing conditions.
Some in more shad than others ans so on.
One of them was to allow tomatoes to grow on smaller plants.
What I have found is what I suspected.

Plants and animals are the same in many ways.
I have seen small under aged animals and larger animals of the same age become pregnant.
This will stunt the growth of the smaller animal as it is unbelievable how much a baby will take away from the mother while in the womb.
The same goes for a plant except for at least one exception.
A tomato plant for the most part will continue to grow unless it is a determinate.
An animal at a certain age will stop growing because it stops producing growth hormones.
well anyway I let some tomatoes stay on plants that were small and they stopped growing and just took care of the tomatoes.
No amount of food would help them.
In about two or three days after removing the tomatoes the plant almost exploded with growth.
Pecan trees on the other hand will get stressed and drop the crop.
This is a survival trait they and other trees have.

Worth

[oakley]

Agreed.
I don't think the plant cares much about those toms now. Let it get on with new growth and hopefully better weather.
I would probably stick in a healthy sucker a foot away to get established in case that
momma plant struggles. Can always yank one of them out.

[AlittleSalt]

Worth, I agree. I also like to learn from experimentation.

Oakley, I thought about that too. These got potted about a week ago. They came from a branch that split off the mother plant. They are looking better each day, so I'm thinking they are starting to root.

Now that song is stuck in my head https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdphvuyaV_I Just makes me want to plant them even more.

[AlittleSalt]

After I removed the tomatoes - the plant didn't make it.

The plant was replaced with a Rebel Yell clone. I originally planted 3 Rebel Yell plants because of how good they looked as seedlings/transplants. And also because I've read a lot of praise for this variety. I hope we like them, because we now have 6 of them planted. The 3 clones took root very quickly in the cups of potting mix.

Tormato, I'll probably be sending in some Rebel Yell seeds for the MMMM